I started a daily writing challenge with my writing group recently and after winding up the 30 days, I noticed a few things. My writing output had increased by about 50%, but I wasn’t particularly methodical in my writing routine. I’m an organized person by most standards, but I now felt that I wanted to be a lot more organized. Seeing my tangible progress made me to want to increase my writing output, which I knew would require a more systematic approach. So I wrote this little memo to myself, to remind me of all the potential and actual resources I can make use of. Maybe you have something that helps you get started writing, or you can try one of these techniques.

The appointed hour comes when you go to your desk to write. However, your mind is blank as the screen in front of you. Fortunately, you have a system for getting started that never fails, consisting of several tools and methods that will rev up your writing engine at will. Here is what you will find:

1. An organized file system where ideas are just a touch or click away: a) a folder on your desk with articles you’ve saved and printouts of assorted helpful notes and checklists; b) a computer file where you save ideas while you’re reading, including links to review; c) a notes app on your phone for ideas that come to you during the day.

2. Your favorite background music on your computer to play while you’re writing or a spotify playlist on your phone.

3. Templates that have headings for the structure of various forms of writing, like blog posts, chapters, articles and essays. Also, your favorite fonts and styles are saved in the templates with keyboard shortcuts. Even if the writing is eventually going to be digital, you know you benefit from writing with visible formatting.

4. Your journal or notebook where you do longhand freewriting to get your brain going every day. Reading some paragraphs you’ve already written, in the style that your thoughts usually flow, is a surefire way to get into your writing groove.

5. Your bulletin board above your writing desk that has positive affirmations, mottos, and pictures of things that lift your mood and make you smile.

6. Your calendar that shows you that you’ve written every day this week so far. You can’t break the chain. You must write or edit at least two pages. Is that all, you think? No problem, you can always keep going.

7. A timer already set to how long you do your average writing sessions, which is 45 minutes. After you finish your session, you can reward yourself with a quick break, short walk, or a fresh cup of tea.

8. Although you may cling to a semi-flexible schedule, you still have two alerts on your phone to remind you when your warm-up session and your working session are supposed to start. You’re already conditioned to put aside all distractions and open your notebook or laptop whenever you hear the alerts go off.

9. And one last thing – your bedtime is 11 pm or sooner, so you can be up by 7 am, dressed, meditated, and ready to start freewriting at 8 am to plan your writing day. Stick to your writing plan and you’ll see more consistent results.

I hope you found these tips helpful. For some ideas about using writing as a planning and focusing tool, you can also check out my book on kindle, Write for Success: 7 Ways Writing Can Help You Be More Successful in Your Work and Life.

I recently reread one of my favorite writing books, “Writing Down the Bones” by Natalie Goldberg. This book galvanized my identity as a writer in the late 80s. It was like a blast of fresh air to get a dose her zen motivation medicine.

Natalie was very practical in her teaching of what was essential in writing. She cut to the chase by teaching beginner’s mind and writing practice as “first thoughts” on the page, based on her 12 years of Zen meditation training. In “Bones” she advised, “It is important to have a way worked out to begin your writing; otherwise, washing the dishes becomes the most important thing on earth…” I have this quote heavily underlined in red pencil from my previous  journeys through this book.

Clearly, I can relate. Even though I have multiple writing projects going, I don’t always follow a particular regimen for doing them. I tend to write when my day-to-day world feels “settled.” A certain amount of quietude is needed.

As Natalie says, we like to complicate things, but keeping things as simple as possible works best.  Make a schedule for writing or call a writer friend when you get stuck. Otherwise, she says just pick a time and a place and then buckle down and do it. It’s okay to reward yourself afterward with your favorite cookies.

Some years ago I took a poetry class with a teacher who said that reading the King James Bible gave her inspiration for writing poetry. That was the first time I heard the idea called “priming the pump”.  As an English Lit student in college we had to read Chaucer, and I loved the musicality of his Middle English poems. I fell in love with the sheer sounds of vowels and wrote poetry for two decades. Certain poets and writers, or musicians and artists, can do that to you. What inspires me to write now is reading some really good writing that I enjoy or reading about the lives of amazing writers and artists.

Natalie was struck by poetry too. She hand copied poems of her favorite poets to inspire her writing. She taught writing workshops for 15 years before Bones was published, taking the advice of her beloved Zen master who told her to “go deep”  into writing. Writing was a vehicle for self mastery as worthy as Zen.

In Natalie’s view, you practice writing whether you want to or not. You don’t wait for inspiration. You do it to develop your writing muscles, so they “are in good shape to ride the universe when it moves though us.” If that’s not an incentive, I don’t know what is.

Haven’t read this book? Check it out here, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. Your purchase through our link helps support this website.