Do you have a daily writing ritual?
If you answered ‘no,’ I get it. Creating a writing ritual that works for you is difficult. But if you don’t yet have a ritual, let me ask you this: Do you have a daily routine?
Many people live substantially the same day over and over:
- Hit snooze
- Roll out of bed
- Drink (too much) coffee
- Zone out while sitting in traffic
- Perform eight hours of meaningless work
- Zone out while sitting in traffic again
- Throw something in the oven
- Argue with your partner
- Binge a TV show
- Pass out
Like the back of a shampoo bottle, all that’s left is to rinse and repeat.
While I can’t pinpoint the genesis of the internal change, at some point, my daily routine started to scare me. Terrify me, really. I began to think of myself as an old lady, a brassy headed septuagenarian wondering what the heck had happened to that dream she once had of becoming a professional writer and editor. And when I looked at my young daughter, I felt a pang of grief that she may come to see dying dreams as facts of normal life.
Normal? Perhaps. It seemed to be, anyway.
But healthy? Exciting? Fulfilling? Rejuvenating?
Maybe “normal” wasn’t what I really needed in my life.
Maybe “normal” was a step back, a less-than performance.
Maybe “normal” was little more than a death sentence for creators.
When I began to see “normal” as an ill-fitting label for artistry, I began to notice opportunities to change my normal. But first, I had to change my routine, and the rituals attached to it.
Humans employ all sorts of fancy rituals, the macro and the micro, to get through the day to day. Recognizing our routines and the opportunities to introduce rituals to modify those routines for the better can help us create writing habits – and other healthy habits – that stick.
Because once the routine is ritualized, it becomes an intrinsic part of your creator self.
Your Daily Routine Is Your Macro Ritual
The ritual comes down to intent: What do you intend to do, and how?
Macro rituals are the big rituals that help you get through your awake hours each day. Your daily routine is a macro ritual for your life, whether you recognize it or not. If you follow the routine outlined previously, you’re likely using a macro ritual designed around employment, work.
What if you designed your macro ritual around your creativity instead?
Anyone can create a simple ritual to integrate into their day, but to elevate your get-ready tasks to ritual status, you must remain fully present of the tasks you’re doing within your routine. No more mindless doing. It’s time for mindful being.
To design a ritual that gets you into your creative mindset, put writing at the center of your daily routine. If you’re formally employed, that can look like:
- Eating lunch away from your desk and writing during that hour instead
- Making time to write before or after work, as a way to either charge up or wind down
- Taking a walk at the same time every day so you can noodle over your story before you write
Your daily schedule of tasks may look different than the rough outline I shared. Regardless of the differences, write down all the tasks you do in a typical day. Then, find the spot where creativity must sit, the place where you can focus on your writing, your art, even if it’s just for 20 minutes.
Your Writing Routine Is Your Micro Ritual
So you worked your creativity into your daily schedule. It’s on your bulleted list of things to do, and you’re bound and determined to do the work. But then you sit down and realize you actually need to write something during that time, that zoning out at your desk while mindlessly munching your sandwich isn’t a good way to get that novel written. It’s time to unleash the micro ritual, the little structured steps you’ll take to get into the spirit of creating, of writing.
If you just lifted an eyebrow, think of your daily shower routine: Disrobe, step into the water, soap up hair and body, rinse, step out of the water, towel dry, get dressed. Forget to soap your hair before soaping your body? You may feel imbalanced. Wake up late and need to miss that shower altogether? You may feel frantic, or unprepared.
If you subscribe to my Substack, you know I’m a tarot reader, and tarot is great for ritual creation as well as personal reflection. When I was just getting started building a daily writing habit (and even now when writing feels extra hard), I used a tarot ritual:
- Light a sage roll
- Meditate for good vibes
- Clean my cards with sage smoke
- Shuffle my cards with good-vibe hands
- Wait for a card of the day to jump from the deck
- Use the jumper as a writing prompt or reflection point
While I no longer use this ritual every time I sit down to write, it’s become so deeply embedded in my writing routine that I can call upon the ritual and use it to my advantage any time I feel stuck and need to jiggle loose some creativity to move forward. And it works every single time.
I fully support your creating a ritual that works for you even if it’s not tarot. Some folks light scented candles, or put on curated mood playlists, or make cups of hot tea. Find a writing ritual that works for you, no matter what that looks like.
How to Add a Writing Ritual to Your Daily Routine
To really get the full benefit of your creative rituals, you’ll want both the macro ritual — the prioritized time — and the micro ritual — the prioritized project — to allow your writing process to come to life and become part of you.
To create and adopt a macro ritual, you must prioritize writing in your daily routine. When the time comes up, be it 7 a.m., noon, or 8 p.m., consider why you want to write during that time, what you will gain by making the choice to write, make the commitment, and then become a writer.
As I tell all the authors I coach, you must protect your writing time the way a mama bear protects her cubs. Turn off your employee mindset. Turn off your need to be a parent. Turn off your partnership, pet ownership, caregiving status, or whatever else you are or do, and remain in your writing seat because that’s what a writer does.
I know it’s hard. Life is just chalk full of distractions that would pull you away from creativity and prescribe for you a life you never designed and wouldn’t have otherwise chosen because a prescribed life is normal.
But remember: Normal is boring, less than, and unfulfilling. Normal doesn’t excite. Normal doesn’t generate new ideas or take risks. Normal is a 9–5 you can’t wait to leave. Normal is not the path to creativity or authorship.
To create, to become an author, is to be abnormal. That’s because most people who say they want to write a book will never actually do the work it takes to write.
So, prioritize your writing time first and foremost.
Recognize the time when it appears on your clock, and employ the necessary discipline to get your butt in the chair at that time.
And when you’re in the chair, use the ritual you designed to sink into your creativity, be it candles, tunes, staring into the steam coming off your tea cup, or something else.
Securing that time, and using creative practices to get into the mindset, is how stories, and novels, get written.
Happy ritualistic writing!
♥ Fal
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Fallon Clark is the book pal who helps you tell your story in your words and voice using editorial, coaching, writing, and project management expertise for revision assistance, one-on-one guidance, and ghostwriting for development. Her writing has been published in Flash Fiction Magazine. Check out her website, FallonClark.com, or connect with her on LinkedIn or Substack.