Writing: Plans & Practices

Morning work and night work (and all the work in-between)

A preview of July’s agent list is here. Last week’s post, “Talking Hangovers, Havana Style,” is here. Bookish monthly and annual subscriptions are 30% off. 📗

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On some mornings, I open the file of the story I’m currently writing and do the literary equivalent of pushing peas around on the plate or hiding them under the mashed potatoes.

Other days—mixing metaphors here—I slip into the river without wincing over how chilly it is or how fast it’s moving and manage to write a couple of new pages.

Writing new work with any degree of regularity is something most writers I know wrestle with on occasion, if not as a rule. Many have full-time jobs and family members they’re the primary caregiver for. Some have a deep-rooted tendency to procrastinate and struggle terribly with their fear of not being able to fill the page with words they’ll look upon later with tolerance, if not relief or joy or affection.

Source: Dreamstime.com

I took an impromptu survey of several writers this evening (July 28), asking them to share their work habits - many of them Bookish interviewees and/or fellow Substack writers - and here are their responses:

Chrissy Kolaya (Charmed Particles): I haven’t always been able to follow much of a routine—over the last few years of teaching and parenting, much of my writing has felt squeezed into whatever small moments I can carve out of a day or week—but lately I’ve been experimenting with getting straight to my writing work first thing in the morning, ideally before letting anything else in, so no checking messages, no reading the news, just right to the page, ideally pen-on-paper style. I’m not always able to make it work, but when I can, it’s felt pretty magical, like a direct line into something close to the dream state.

Aimee Liu (Glorious Boy) : I write something every day. In my head I’m writing all the time. It’s not just what I do but who I am. Not an ideal identity, really, but it’s how I’ve evolved. I don’t really have a practice, mostly because my time is my own now that my kids are grown and gone. But my husband is retired so I generally give mornings to him for a daily walk. Distractions follow. I don’t usually hit my stride until mid- or late afternoon, but one way or another I probably spend more than six hours every day either at the keyboard or composing in a notebook. I should spend more of this time reading, but I wrongly feel as if reading during work hours is cheating, so I don’t often give myself this grace.

Kurt Baumeister (Twilight of the Gods): I go to the same cafe every day, sit down and write for a few hours. I also write for a few hours at night/very early am. I’ve written at all times of the day--I tend to go in phases. Sometimes my cafe time is in the late morning, sometimes in the mid- afternoon. I’m lucky to have a flexible schedule. I feel best when I’m putting in a few hours every day but it’s not so important to me when they come.

Melissa Fraterrigo (The Perils of Girlhood): I am not great at scheduling my writing time, but writing itself is never far from my mind. I work to pay attention to my surroundings and keep track of ideas and drop them down in my phone or send myself a voice text when an idea arrives. I don’t make myself sit at the desk every day, but I do journal each morning so that I’m constantly composting and checking in both with myself and reflecting on what I am reading, and how elements of the larger world are resonating with me at that particular moment in time.

Staci Greason (All the Girls in Town): I make myself go into my office and start writing at nine every morning. I put my phone on do not disturb, and I try to write until it’s time to walk the dogs at noon. Mostly, this involves staring out the window, finding the right music, and avoiding social media!

Frank Edwards (Doctor Witch): I often try to write in the early mornings, but am easily distracted by other chores. I tend to catch fire around two PM and write steadily until five or six.

Suzanne Clores (The Extraordinary Project): For me it’s the morning. Dream journal as soon as I wake up, even before coffee. Then coffee, about 45 minutes of writing, then some sort of workout - even if it’s just a walk and then lying on a purple block under my sacrum. After the work out, I sit as long as I can at my desk and that’s the “real” session - ideally about 2-3 hours or however long I can go without doing meetings/completing other work. I don’t usually schedule calls/meetings until after 1 PM if I can help it. Challenging since I work with people in many different time zones! Unlike some other writers, I can’t write at a cafe or at large in the world. I want to know how they do that! For me, the sounds, smells and sights are limitless distractions.

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann

Sarah Tomlinson (The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers): Having been lucky enough to be a full-time writer for the past twenty-five years, and never having gone into an office, I’m allergic to strict routines. But I always begin my day with time to myself, for meditation, journaling, tarot (I know, very California of me), and exercise. And then, I prioritize my hardest work first. This means, if I’m writing a novel or personal essay, I start as early as possible in the morning and aim to get in as many good hours as I can. And then, I tackle my ghostwriting, correspondence, and such. Or if I’m doing new writing for a ghosting client, I put them first. When I find myself checking my email or looking at social media, I know my brain is cooked, and I try to get away from my computer.

Yasmina Madden (You Know Nothing): When I’m teaching it can be tough for me to write on a strict schedule. I do a lot more revising while I am teaching and write new work during winter and summer break. The only must for me while writing is quiet.

Colette Sartor (Once Removed): My writing schedule varies. In an ideal world (e.g., I’m at a residency taking care of no one but myself), I’m at my computer by 6:30 or 7 a.m. I always start my writing day by reading—the newspaper, a really good book—then I journal or get straight into a draft or revisions for the rest of the morning and most of the day. But the world is rarely ideal, so usually I fit writing around the rest of my work schedule. I always shoot for setting aside a few hours in the morning to write, but often I have to push to the afternoon because of meetings. By then, the rest of life has gotten hold of my brain, so I’m not nearly as productive, but I still try to get in at least an hour of writing, even if it’s only journaling. Some days, though, I don’t write at all, even if my schedule is free, but that’s my process. My subconscious needs time to work out story or character problems so that when I eventually get back to work, I’m excited by the solutions that appear on the page.

Catherine Elcik (HIBOU): When I’m writing regularly, I tend to be a morning writer. These days I’m combatting a particularly bad case of what’sthepointitis by doing whatever it takes to get myself to the page. Mostly that means bribing myself with whatever works. These days—when my summer is unexpectedly busy professionally—that takes the form of writing elsewhere: coworking spaces, sneaking off to a coffee shop and treating myself to a latte [which] I consider a sidekick, scheduling a short retreat with a writer friend. That said, regular practice is better for my heart, and so my heart is shifting from grieving to longing as I feel the pull of being in regular practice. I’ll likely be back on “team morning" by the end of a summer.

Adam McOmber (Fantasy Kit): Essentially, I have a morning hour of writing which I call an “hour of power” where I don’t text or check emails. I write for an hour, and I extend that if possible, but if you do an hour every morning, you can get a lot of work done. So that’s morning work. [There’s also] night work, where I either revise something in progress or I work on a piece of flash, i.e. something that’s less of a heavy lift than a novel.

Jeremy Wilson (The Quail Who Wears the Shirt): I get up on weekdays at 5:25 and fill a 40 oz. water bottle and sit on the couch with my feet up. If I could do this in bed without waking my wife, I would. I want to maintain that half-awake feeling, to linger a little in dreamland. I write fast and try to keep things moving. If I can’t think of a word or a type of plant or something, I leave Xs. Momentum is vital. If I stop, I might realize how badly I want coffee. Typically this all lasts until a little after seven when my family gets up. I’ll sneak more time later if I can, but this way when the rest of the day inevitably gets away from me, I’ve already gotten down some words. I also like how whatever I’ve written in the morning sticks with me throughout the day, sort of filtering into my thoughts as I’m buying snacks or lightbulbs or whatever.

Source: Unsplash—Girl with red hat

Hannah Sward (Strip): I tend to write in the mornings, but I don’t have a strict writing schedule. I do have a ritual of returning to my notebooks and journals. A lot of my work begins there, with a sentence, a memory, or a moment I can’t stop thinking about. [My Substack] Summer of Men has been unique because I’m writing it in real time, as the story unfolds.

Randy Richardson (Another Havana Hangover): Now that I'm retired, it's much easier to schedule my writing time. I'm a creature of habit and very much a morning person. I'm usually up at the crack of dawn, fuel up with my "healthy" breakfast of Diet Coke and Entenmann's mini chocolate chip muffins, then settle into my home office for two or three hours. My goal is simple: write at least 500 words every day.

“Every writer is one acceptance away from confidence and one rejection away from taking up pottery.” —Anonymous