Accountability is a tricky thing, especially for writers. Especially for new writers, who don’t have an editor or agent breathing down their neck with deadlines. If that half-finished draft in your desk drawer never sees the light of day…who’s to know?
For years I never finished my writing projects, and the only consequence was creative frustration. That’s when I turned to writing online serials: suddenly I had readers! And knowing there’s someone out there waiting for the next chapter is apparently enough to get me back to the keyboard.
Just one reader is enough. It’s a highly effective brain hack, at least for me.
So, how about you? How do you stay focused, and get things done? Doesn’t have to be specific to writing, even - see you down in the discussion.
I've never been able to do the 'show up every day and write' without having an external bit of motivation. Annoyingly, the writing on its own doesn't seem to be enough. Or, rather, I'd have bursts of activity, but also lengthy periods of not writing. I'm too easily distracted!
I'm quite envious of people who can just sit down and do the writing without needing to trick their brains. ;)
I guess for me the trick is to love the process itself, the topic, the feeling of writing, or it’s a very long road! Writing for a reader is a great motivation for me too ✨
It took time, a pandemic and lockdown to develop a “show up and write” every day habit. During lockdown, I discovered the London Writers Salon who host hour-long zoom co-writing sessions four times a day. Game-changing, life-changing experience that has helped me launch 2 newsletters and publish a bunch of essays.
It's a good feeling once a habit has actually formed. The amount that I write these days would have been utterly inconceivable to 2014 me. It's only possible due to gradually building a habit over a very long period.
The Salon co-writing sessions sound great. I hadn't heard about those!
I hear you, Simon! Now that I finished the detective novel last week (well, the lengthy first draft anyway), I can look back and draw some conclusions. It has never been hard to motivate myself to write since that has been my main vocation since about age 5, but achieving a result and making it a career over the last 24 years- perhaps here is one point that might be both common to my general and specific recent projects, and might be useful for other writers (especially those who did not get to enjoy life before the internet. And that is...
Start your writing day BEFORE turning on any internet pages at all, and do your best to keep it that way for as long as you can hold out.
That might sound mad, given modern life and the fact that we are gathered here on an internet platform, but it works. The distracting effect of external stimuli can wreck an entire day's work. I recollect that the common features of those standout days of writing 10,000-20,000 words in a single day is, in every case, the absence of any other electronic distractions. It's so simple,
Thus the fact I took the time to leave this comment tells me, already, that today is an editing and revision day, as opposed to a new writing day, which was anyway my choice for today. But to try and go be creative after opening the internet would have been hopeless... but perhaps that's just my experience. Happy writing, all!
I've always been really tempted by those stripped-down, writing-only computers you can get, which can't really do anything else. Like the Freewrite device: https://getfreewrite.com/
The price and the REALLY ugly design have put me off so far, but the concept is great.
Tried for years to find a way to build a creative routine - trying to find that perfect app to master my productivity. It turns out it was NEVER about a creative routine with me. It was about my lack of self-discipline in the rest of my life.
Marathon Legend Eliud Kipchoge was the biggest inspiration to me any my creative "routine" when he talked about having self-discipline. And freeing yourself to do what you want to do. To believe in the change. Yes this is a bit random, being inspired by a Marathon Runner - but trust me - hunt down his videos on Youtube.
My personal self-discipline was to focus on all the OTHER things in life which need working on - bills, family, emails, feeding the dogs, personal health, that weird pain in my shoulder which I didn't get fixed. I worked hard on a way to organise and prioritise everything BUT my creative work. Get all that solid and stable and FLOWING.
Once all that is in some shape, some routine, some discipline (life shit never diminishes right!), it gave me the freedom to think, the freedom to lose myself, and to build creative time into some days, some weeks. To creative for myself.
S. King and J. Cleese have wonderful articles on creating an environment to create, a structure, and a physical and mental seclusion. But this can only work when you don't have life distractions. You can't close the curtains on anxiety, or money worries, or health worries, or picking up dog-shit - the stuff that is actually important.
All this is ALWAYS easier said than done, especially when your creative spark is gnawing away at you from the inside. But it might just work for you too.
This is excellent advice, thanks Andy. Not being able to focus is so often due to all the OTHER stuff, rather than there being a problem with the writing.
I'm not always the best exemplar of this but I try to have a set writing routine, so writing at the same time for the same amount of time everyday. It can be hard to maintain at times but really helps.
I also keep pretty rigorous track of my word count, time spent, and progress on each project. My spreadsheet lets me know if I've been slacking off or putting time and energy into the wrong place.
That sounds very organised. If you have been slacking off, is that enough to get you back on track? Is your own internal motivation enough? That's where I've always struggled: even if I've been slacking, if there's no real consequences for that, why worry? Hence writing my stuff online, where I'm able to add the 'consequence' of readers waiting for the next instalment.
To be fair it's not always enough, but I've found it's a lot better than when I don't keep track. I think just knowing that I'm going to have to log my progress at the end of the day helps because I know if I get to the end of the day and I don't have much to add I'll feel bad. Getting to see the trends with my productivity over the span of weeks or months helps me to notice when my discipline is slipping a little bit. I've found, at least for me, when it comes to habit and routine in general, things are typically either slowly building up or down. This approach helps me to be aware of which direction I'm moving in and course correct if need be. It also lets me turn it into a little game where I'm constantly trying to one up myself.
I guess in terms of "no real consequences" there is one quite significant consequence: you'll never actually get any writing done if you slack off.
To be honest, reader expectation sounds like it's probably a more powerful motivator, or it's at least easier to harness. Everything I've been talking about requires a degree of internal discipline which, while powerful when it works, can be very variable depending on what else is going on in my life. On the other hand, you've got an external motivator which is going to remain somewhat consistent. I'm fairly new to the whole writing publicly thing though, so I don't have that option. I need to find other methods to ensure I get the work done.
I use a visual timer and the focus feature on my laptop to keep distractions at bay. I also schedule regular times each day to write, which I feel primes my brain for writing. Oh, and online writing groups are a godsend!
For me it's definitely an inner motivation. Something feels very off and out-of-whack when I don't sit down for my hour of writing. If my publishing days go by without anything being published, I have a hard time because it simply feels so right when things are shared.
There’s not a lot that externally motivates me. So far the thing that works best is telling my two besties about the story I’m currently working on, and getting them hyped to be alpha readers. Which means that if I’m not sending them a chapter a week, I’m getting prodding messages asking what happens next, lol.
I try to write very day for 20 minutes but I also cut myself some slack when life gets busy. Whenever I go longer than a few days without writing, I get cranky & irritable which always pulls me back.
I definitely had a lot of trial & error though. Still experiment with my 'writing routine' every now & then. The result is that I have no routine, I'm not too precious about when or where I write. Recently I've even written (well, brainstormed, researched & edited) on my phone during the train commute, which I thought I'd never do because I hate typing anything that's longer than your ordinary text message with just my thumbs.
One thing I will say is that I prefer writing at night--but that doesn't mean I CAN'T write during the day. I write whenever & wherever I find the time.
I find I'm better at writing non-fiction stuff during the day, but am MUCH more comfortable writing fiction at night. Which probably says something about my brain.
Same as you, having a newsletter with readers help a lot in consistently writing fiction. For projects with longer timelines, like a book, it's harder. I try to spend an hour a day on my (first) book, but it's definitely harder to stick to than writing stories for my newsletter.
Yeah, having a newsletter helps. Putting my wordcounts in it is a great motivator. Nothing's more incentivising than the fear of looking like a dick if I've done nothing for a few weeks.
I can't write every day, just not in me. Not physically, anyway. If you count pushing ideas and around and moulding them in my head, which I do, then I'm doing it all the time. I just have a different point in the process at which they get out of my head onto the page.
Agreed on all of that! I don't actually enjoy writing every day. I think it lowers the quality of the work, for me, because I really lean on those in-between moments to improve the work.
Absolutely. I mean, horses for courses, I'm (secretly) impressed with those people who do, but as you say, those gaps really help me. I guess it depends if you define 'writing' as only those times you're actually putting pen to paper (so to speak).
I know you would, but since I've got a new Geek squad member (Megan fell down a set of stairs and is confined to bed like forever), coming tomorrow, I'll see what shakes out. Thank u for your kind offer. But i may well arrive on your doorstep one fine morn, laptop in one hand and a furry pet for the boy in the other. ( Can we keep him, Dad? The sharper teeth can be extracted!)
After working a long day at my full-time job, I usually am tired enough where I don’t want to write. But I have found by setting manageable goals for myself each day whether that’s finishing out a scene or hopping on Substack to schedule a post or two or interact with other writers, I find it much easier. I also have the habit of switching between multiple projects so that way I don’t become burnout by the one I’m working on!
I hear that. Just one reader is enough. Thirty-four episodes of Just Right on Medium, and I know I had one reader for sure. One consistent reader every Monday and Thursday for months. Honestly, that was good enough for me. I finished it. And now I wonder if I should throw it together in Draft2Digital just so I can own it hardcopy. I don't expect anyone to buy it. I'm giving it away on my website for free -- the first 10 episodes anyway. But it would be cool to hold it in my hands. A sense of accomplishment, even if I'm the only one who knows I finished. Me, that is, and Mike, someone guy I'll never know.
As I'm working on my nonfiction project, I have two people I text when I have finished a section. They reflect encouragement back to me.
I have committed to writing at least once per week, outside of my Morning Pages. At the time, daily writing was no-can-do because of my Long Covid. I have found myself writing more frequently in recent times, though, so I might expand my commitment to twice a week, now that my brain seems to be behaving better.
For me, periodic Inspiration helps me keep going, as in a new idea or concept to wrap my brain around and play with it. (Given this situation, what if this happens? Or that happens? Where would these characters be five years later? That sort of thing.) Re-engaging with pop culture has been very invigorating in this department.
I try to do 20-30 minutes of writing in the morning and a second writing session in the afternoon. As for staying focused, I am currently reading The Organised Writer by Antony Johnston to figure that out! (https://organised-writer.com/)
I'm officially semi-retired, from novels to Substack posts and serial short fiction. I work 5 days a week now, and have shortened the writing day by a couple of hours (spend more time on the internet, give myself more reading time). I have days for post writing, days for the fiction. Since I'm working on multiple projects, I no longer track word count (did that for years). I love the process and I feel unmoored if I don't put in at least a half-day's writing. Happy to have the Substack post schedule (I have an editorial calendar) and feel fortunate to have readers to write for directly. They keep me on-track and and motivated.
I write everyday, whether it's a poem, drabble, flash fiction, short story or working on a novel. For me, having a wide range of writing formats keeps me motivated. That way if I get frustrated with my novel, I can work on a shorter piece. It seems to get me over the hump so I can move back to the novel.
I’m a creature of habit so I have daily writing goals that I like to hit if I’m drafting, or daily editing goals if I’m doing that. If I know I’m ready to publish something, I’ll start the hype train, which gets people geared toward a specific date. Then I go from there. I have a date to hit because I’ve set expectations.
I go in waves. Months, sometimes even years, when I don’t write ... and then for longish periods of time (many months) I write in a very disciplined way (or so my wife says, and it’s nice to hear her say it). Lots of articles and blog posts, and four books. I’m currently collecting it all together for my own stack (possibly only of interest to me, but it’s great fun for this 77 year old!). I’m also about 3/4 the way through a first draft of another novel, one that I began a decade ago (as a short story), and which proceeds in fits and starts, but which I hope to publish on Substack before the end of 2014. Fingers crossed. 🤞
There’s usually something happening which preoccupies me when I’m not in a writing phase. Like gardening. Or going for walks and getting fitter. Sometimes I feel it would be good to be doing more writing. But it doesn’t feel frustrating.
See above. I'm waiting for tomorrow without much hope. I just may contact you about one particular section. BTW, the pup resembles the HellHound on Good Omens.
I show up every day and write for an hour. I did this to write my novel, which worked, and now doing the same for my Substack letters from therapy.
Im definitely even more motivated having paid subscribers signing up for the year option - I have no choice now! 🤣 that keeps me accountable.
and of course, write what you love 💛✨
I've never been able to do the 'show up every day and write' without having an external bit of motivation. Annoyingly, the writing on its own doesn't seem to be enough. Or, rather, I'd have bursts of activity, but also lengthy periods of not writing. I'm too easily distracted!
I'm quite envious of people who can just sit down and do the writing without needing to trick their brains. ;)
I guess for me the trick is to love the process itself, the topic, the feeling of writing, or it’s a very long road! Writing for a reader is a great motivation for me too ✨
Yeah, you can't force yourself to write something you don't love. Or, at least, it's painful to try.
It took time, a pandemic and lockdown to develop a “show up and write” every day habit. During lockdown, I discovered the London Writers Salon who host hour-long zoom co-writing sessions four times a day. Game-changing, life-changing experience that has helped me launch 2 newsletters and publish a bunch of essays.
It's a good feeling once a habit has actually formed. The amount that I write these days would have been utterly inconceivable to 2014 me. It's only possible due to gradually building a habit over a very long period.
The Salon co-writing sessions sound great. I hadn't heard about those!
I hear you, Simon! Now that I finished the detective novel last week (well, the lengthy first draft anyway), I can look back and draw some conclusions. It has never been hard to motivate myself to write since that has been my main vocation since about age 5, but achieving a result and making it a career over the last 24 years- perhaps here is one point that might be both common to my general and specific recent projects, and might be useful for other writers (especially those who did not get to enjoy life before the internet. And that is...
Start your writing day BEFORE turning on any internet pages at all, and do your best to keep it that way for as long as you can hold out.
That might sound mad, given modern life and the fact that we are gathered here on an internet platform, but it works. The distracting effect of external stimuli can wreck an entire day's work. I recollect that the common features of those standout days of writing 10,000-20,000 words in a single day is, in every case, the absence of any other electronic distractions. It's so simple,
Thus the fact I took the time to leave this comment tells me, already, that today is an editing and revision day, as opposed to a new writing day, which was anyway my choice for today. But to try and go be creative after opening the internet would have been hopeless... but perhaps that's just my experience. Happy writing, all!
I've always been really tempted by those stripped-down, writing-only computers you can get, which can't really do anything else. Like the Freewrite device: https://getfreewrite.com/
The price and the REALLY ugly design have put me off so far, but the concept is great.
I write everyday, even if I I don't have any specific purpose. I need to write, not to be accountable
I'm envious of you having such a good habit!
Tried for years to find a way to build a creative routine - trying to find that perfect app to master my productivity. It turns out it was NEVER about a creative routine with me. It was about my lack of self-discipline in the rest of my life.
Marathon Legend Eliud Kipchoge was the biggest inspiration to me any my creative "routine" when he talked about having self-discipline. And freeing yourself to do what you want to do. To believe in the change. Yes this is a bit random, being inspired by a Marathon Runner - but trust me - hunt down his videos on Youtube.
My personal self-discipline was to focus on all the OTHER things in life which need working on - bills, family, emails, feeding the dogs, personal health, that weird pain in my shoulder which I didn't get fixed. I worked hard on a way to organise and prioritise everything BUT my creative work. Get all that solid and stable and FLOWING.
Once all that is in some shape, some routine, some discipline (life shit never diminishes right!), it gave me the freedom to think, the freedom to lose myself, and to build creative time into some days, some weeks. To creative for myself.
S. King and J. Cleese have wonderful articles on creating an environment to create, a structure, and a physical and mental seclusion. But this can only work when you don't have life distractions. You can't close the curtains on anxiety, or money worries, or health worries, or picking up dog-shit - the stuff that is actually important.
All this is ALWAYS easier said than done, especially when your creative spark is gnawing away at you from the inside. But it might just work for you too.
This is excellent advice, thanks Andy. Not being able to focus is so often due to all the OTHER stuff, rather than there being a problem with the writing.
I'm not always the best exemplar of this but I try to have a set writing routine, so writing at the same time for the same amount of time everyday. It can be hard to maintain at times but really helps.
I also keep pretty rigorous track of my word count, time spent, and progress on each project. My spreadsheet lets me know if I've been slacking off or putting time and energy into the wrong place.
That sounds very organised. If you have been slacking off, is that enough to get you back on track? Is your own internal motivation enough? That's where I've always struggled: even if I've been slacking, if there's no real consequences for that, why worry? Hence writing my stuff online, where I'm able to add the 'consequence' of readers waiting for the next instalment.
To be fair it's not always enough, but I've found it's a lot better than when I don't keep track. I think just knowing that I'm going to have to log my progress at the end of the day helps because I know if I get to the end of the day and I don't have much to add I'll feel bad. Getting to see the trends with my productivity over the span of weeks or months helps me to notice when my discipline is slipping a little bit. I've found, at least for me, when it comes to habit and routine in general, things are typically either slowly building up or down. This approach helps me to be aware of which direction I'm moving in and course correct if need be. It also lets me turn it into a little game where I'm constantly trying to one up myself.
I guess in terms of "no real consequences" there is one quite significant consequence: you'll never actually get any writing done if you slack off.
To be honest, reader expectation sounds like it's probably a more powerful motivator, or it's at least easier to harness. Everything I've been talking about requires a degree of internal discipline which, while powerful when it works, can be very variable depending on what else is going on in my life. On the other hand, you've got an external motivator which is going to remain somewhat consistent. I'm fairly new to the whole writing publicly thing though, so I don't have that option. I need to find other methods to ensure I get the work done.
I use a visual timer and the focus feature on my laptop to keep distractions at bay. I also schedule regular times each day to write, which I feel primes my brain for writing. Oh, and online writing groups are a godsend!
For me it's definitely an inner motivation. Something feels very off and out-of-whack when I don't sit down for my hour of writing. If my publishing days go by without anything being published, I have a hard time because it simply feels so right when things are shared.
I also feel a bit weird if I don't write regularly. Took me a long time to recognise this. Feels like an odd pressure building up in my head.
I can really relate to the feeling of pressure building up.
There’s not a lot that externally motivates me. So far the thing that works best is telling my two besties about the story I’m currently working on, and getting them hyped to be alpha readers. Which means that if I’m not sending them a chapter a week, I’m getting prodding messages asking what happens next, lol.
I try to write very day for 20 minutes but I also cut myself some slack when life gets busy. Whenever I go longer than a few days without writing, I get cranky & irritable which always pulls me back.
I definitely had a lot of trial & error though. Still experiment with my 'writing routine' every now & then. The result is that I have no routine, I'm not too precious about when or where I write. Recently I've even written (well, brainstormed, researched & edited) on my phone during the train commute, which I thought I'd never do because I hate typing anything that's longer than your ordinary text message with just my thumbs.
One thing I will say is that I prefer writing at night--but that doesn't mean I CAN'T write during the day. I write whenever & wherever I find the time.
I find I'm better at writing non-fiction stuff during the day, but am MUCH more comfortable writing fiction at night. Which probably says something about my brain.
Same as you, having a newsletter with readers help a lot in consistently writing fiction. For projects with longer timelines, like a book, it's harder. I try to spend an hour a day on my (first) book, but it's definitely harder to stick to than writing stories for my newsletter.
Yeah, having a newsletter helps. Putting my wordcounts in it is a great motivator. Nothing's more incentivising than the fear of looking like a dick if I've done nothing for a few weeks.
I can't write every day, just not in me. Not physically, anyway. If you count pushing ideas and around and moulding them in my head, which I do, then I'm doing it all the time. I just have a different point in the process at which they get out of my head onto the page.
Agreed on all of that! I don't actually enjoy writing every day. I think it lowers the quality of the work, for me, because I really lean on those in-between moments to improve the work.
Absolutely. I mean, horses for courses, I'm (secretly) impressed with those people who do, but as you say, those gaps really help me. I guess it depends if you define 'writing' as only those times you're actually putting pen to paper (so to speak).
I know you would, but since I've got a new Geek squad member (Megan fell down a set of stairs and is confined to bed like forever), coming tomorrow, I'll see what shakes out. Thank u for your kind offer. But i may well arrive on your doorstep one fine morn, laptop in one hand and a furry pet for the boy in the other. ( Can we keep him, Dad? The sharper teeth can be extracted!)
Simon K. Jones, I just may take you up on your offer. I'm going to see what this new guy can do. At this point, rather gloomy about it.
After working a long day at my full-time job, I usually am tired enough where I don’t want to write. But I have found by setting manageable goals for myself each day whether that’s finishing out a scene or hopping on Substack to schedule a post or two or interact with other writers, I find it much easier. I also have the habit of switching between multiple projects so that way I don’t become burnout by the one I’m working on!
I hear that. Just one reader is enough. Thirty-four episodes of Just Right on Medium, and I know I had one reader for sure. One consistent reader every Monday and Thursday for months. Honestly, that was good enough for me. I finished it. And now I wonder if I should throw it together in Draft2Digital just so I can own it hardcopy. I don't expect anyone to buy it. I'm giving it away on my website for free -- the first 10 episodes anyway. But it would be cool to hold it in my hands. A sense of accomplishment, even if I'm the only one who knows I finished. Me, that is, and Mike, someone guy I'll never know.
As I'm working on my nonfiction project, I have two people I text when I have finished a section. They reflect encouragement back to me.
I have committed to writing at least once per week, outside of my Morning Pages. At the time, daily writing was no-can-do because of my Long Covid. I have found myself writing more frequently in recent times, though, so I might expand my commitment to twice a week, now that my brain seems to be behaving better.
For me, periodic Inspiration helps me keep going, as in a new idea or concept to wrap my brain around and play with it. (Given this situation, what if this happens? Or that happens? Where would these characters be five years later? That sort of thing.) Re-engaging with pop culture has been very invigorating in this department.
I think about what I write when I'm not writing- I try to get it straight in my head before I do anything else.
I'm increasingly convinced that the in-between bits are far more important than the actual writing bits. For me, at least.
Rigorous discipline, preventing myself from being provoked into commenting on everything that pops up in my inbox... oh shit.
Sorry about that.
I try to do 20-30 minutes of writing in the morning and a second writing session in the afternoon. As for staying focused, I am currently reading The Organised Writer by Antony Johnston to figure that out! (https://organised-writer.com/)
Ah, nice! Antony is on Substack. I interviewed him about that book back in the day: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/writing-hub/how-to-be-an-organised-writer/
Also highly recommend his Wasteland comic. Astonishing stuff.
Oh nice! Will check out both!
I'm officially semi-retired, from novels to Substack posts and serial short fiction. I work 5 days a week now, and have shortened the writing day by a couple of hours (spend more time on the internet, give myself more reading time). I have days for post writing, days for the fiction. Since I'm working on multiple projects, I no longer track word count (did that for years). I love the process and I feel unmoored if I don't put in at least a half-day's writing. Happy to have the Substack post schedule (I have an editorial calendar) and feel fortunate to have readers to write for directly. They keep me on-track and and motivated.
I write everyday, whether it's a poem, drabble, flash fiction, short story or working on a novel. For me, having a wide range of writing formats keeps me motivated. That way if I get frustrated with my novel, I can work on a shorter piece. It seems to get me over the hump so I can move back to the novel.
I’m a creature of habit so I have daily writing goals that I like to hit if I’m drafting, or daily editing goals if I’m doing that. If I know I’m ready to publish something, I’ll start the hype train, which gets people geared toward a specific date. Then I go from there. I have a date to hit because I’ve set expectations.
I go in waves. Months, sometimes even years, when I don’t write ... and then for longish periods of time (many months) I write in a very disciplined way (or so my wife says, and it’s nice to hear her say it). Lots of articles and blog posts, and four books. I’m currently collecting it all together for my own stack (possibly only of interest to me, but it’s great fun for this 77 year old!). I’m also about 3/4 the way through a first draft of another novel, one that I began a decade ago (as a short story), and which proceeds in fits and starts, but which I hope to publish on Substack before the end of 2014. Fingers crossed. 🤞
How do you feel about the periods where you don't write? I know for me that always frustrated me - but it sounds like it's worked out nicely for you?
There’s usually something happening which preoccupies me when I’m not in a writing phase. Like gardening. Or going for walks and getting fitter. Sometimes I feel it would be good to be doing more writing. But it doesn’t feel frustrating.
At this point, I refuse to call myself anything other than confused. I'm accountable as hell, but the format on Substack confuses me. Am I alone?
Is there anything specific that's confusing you? Happy to help if I can.
See above. I'm waiting for tomorrow without much hope. I just may contact you about one particular section. BTW, the pup resembles the HellHound on Good Omens.