Fall has always felt like a season of re-commitment to my writing. Often that’s taken the form of really digging into a particular project — either beginning something new or deep revision of a work-in-progress.
This fall has looked different than the last few, though. Late in August I was offered the chance to teach an introductory creative writing course, and I jumped at the chance, but it’s meant that I’ve been more focused on preparing lectures and writing exercises than on revising my novel for the past few weeks.
Like my writers, I struggle with these periods when everything else seems to come before my writing, even when, like now, that’s what feels necessary.
But the necessity doesn’t always make it easy to accept, and so there were several days earlier in September where I despaired when all I could find time and energy for was ten minutes of freewriting rather than a couple of hours to draft a new scene.
What I’d been forgetting is something I stressed to my students in our first class: the importance of building a sustainable writing practice. To hold my commitment to my creative work, but to hold it with more ease and compassion for what’s actually possible right now.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve returned to the basic, fundamental foundation of my writing as a practice, not a product, and here are the main things I’ve been doing to stay committed to a sustainable writing practice:
Focus on what’s possible
Rather than setting yourself up for failure, commit at the beginning to a small amount of time that feels realistic. Maybe it’s 5-10 minutes a day to start and then you increase your time from there. When you’re establishing your practice, the ability to be present and honour what you’re committing to is important. It helps you trust yourself and it helps your creativity trust you, too.
Show up
When I was beginning to re-commit to my writing, I read Dorothea Brande’s Becoming a Writer (I talk in more detail about her book here). One thing that has always stayed with me was deciding on a time of day to write and showing up no matter what—doing whatever was necessary to pay that “debt of honor.”
It’s a combination of being kind to yourself in terms of focusing on what’s possible but then also holding yourself very firmly to what you’ve committed to. There is so much that will keep us away from the page if we let it. When establishing your writing practice, one of the main things you’re building is your ability to show up—for your writing, for your creativity, for yourself.
Create a ritual
Perhaps it’s a certain candle you light or a certain tea you make. Maybe there’s a certain song or even a moment of dance or shaking that’s helpful to transition into your practice. Ritual sets this time apart and signals to your body and mind that you are now in practice, and the more you embrace the specific rituals that work for you, the more quickly you can cross that threshold and move into your creative work.
Prompts, exercises and readings
If you struggle with where to begin, you might start with a freewriting prompt or exercise—or maybe your way in is through reading the works of others. You might even copy out a few lines of a poem or story or essay by a writer you find inspiring. Keep images in a folder or on a Pinterest board that you can use as story prompts or for exercises in description. Pay attention to what specific types of prompts or starting points work best for you generally and also for each specific project you’re working on. Turn to those when you’re struggling to connect and also sometimes focus on play and experimentation and embrace a totally different type of exercise just to see what it opens up for you.
Practice, not perfect
Remember that this is a practice, that you and your writing are in process, and that the aim is not perfection. There are days when you show up and you won’t feel connected. There will be some days where you just can’t show up—no matter how much you intend to or how hard you try to keep your “debt of honor.”
In those moments, rather than blaming yourself or giving up, forgive yourself. Re-commit to your practice. Re-assess what’s possible and then show up again.
That’s really what the practice requires: showing up over and over and over again.
Candle Photo by Hakan Erenler from Pexels
Abstract Background by Dan Cristian Pădureț from Pexels
