The Writing Habit

Habit: a behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition.

Writing is a habit. When you do it daily it becomes second nature, part of your routine—I won’t say it ever gets to be easy, but getting your thoughts on paper (or screen) does become easier with frequent practice. Once you’ve been in the writing habit for a while, your brain becomes a writing machine; ideas come easily, connections fall into place, words flow. This process also works in reverse: Fall out of the writing habit and you can have a dickens of a time getting back into it. I know.

I write local cat-related stories for an online publication. I try to write at least three times each week, and I try to keep a variety of stories in development. Last week I was sick and didn’t write at all. Then this afternoon I sat down to write the story I’d meant to write over a week ago … and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t assemble the pieces into anything coherent. For a moment I panicked and thought, “Oh my God, I’ve forgotten how to write!” Of course this wasn’t quite true. (I attribute the melodrama to lingering side effects of antibiotics.) I just had to get my brain back in the habit. I struggled a little longer until my brain woke up and the pieces fell into place, then I wrote the story and almost immediately got an idea for another story.

For quite a while I was blogging three times a week (okay, sometimes only two times a week). Coming up with ideas was easy, the writing was easy, finding time was (usually) easy. Then I got busy with other things, I was away from home for part of the summer, we got a Wii Fit … talk about a perfect storm. The first thing I do at my desk every Monday morning is make a list of everything I need to accomplish that week. Each week, I put “Adventures in Editing, M-W-F” at the top of the list. Then my week actually starts to happen. By Friday evening, everything (okay, almost everything) on the list has been accomplished … except “Adventures in Editing, M-W-F.” Coming up with ideas is hard, the writing is hard, finding time is (always) hard. I’ve fallen out of the habit, and I’m having a dickens of a time getting back into it.

But now I’m swinging myself back onto the blogging bandwagon. I’ve almost written one whole post and I have ideas for two more. This could get to be a habit.