What kind of a morning routine should a writer have? Not everyone has the time for elaborate morning routines, at least not every day, but when you’ve got the chance to start your day more intentionally, here are some ideas that you can use. They should prepare you for your daily writing sessions and help you be more creative.
Related reading: Do you need a daily writing routine? – Health tips for writers – Affirmations for writers
Choose your own adventure with this writer morning routine
This post isn’t a prescription to how to start your day the right and the only way. You can pick and choose any of these ideas and do them in any order you want. Maybe you choose a different thing to do every day, and that’s cool too.
Even though I’m talking about “morning routines” here, nobody says you need to do these things first thing in the morning. I have two kids, so on weekdays my utmost priority is to get them ready for school, and if you have to get up early to go to work or classes, I can imagine you don’t want to do anything beyond opening your eyes and getting dressed.
This morning routine could also be your little ritual that prepares you for your writing sessions, even if you’re doing it in the evening. Sure, it’s nice if you can start your day on the right foot, but not everyone has that luxury every single day. Do what works for you.
Also, you don’t need to be working on your writing right after this morning routine, or that day at all. Maybe you just want to feel creative and you want to feel like a Real Writer all day no matter what you’re doing. That’s totally fine too.
So with that out of the way, let’s get into your new morning routine.
Write a single sentence
If you’re preparing yourself to a day of writing, it might seem silly to add some extra writing to your morning routine, but think of it as opening the valve so that the words can flow better when you’re ready to actually write. And hey, if you’re not planning to do any writing that day, or you’re not sure if you’ve got the time, it’s good to get at least something out.
Your single sentence doesn’t have to be related to your work-in-progress. It doesn’t have to be good and it doesn’t have to make sense. In fact, you could make it your goal to write the silliest sentence you can think of, or maybe even write a really bad poem. Yes, a poem is definitely more than one sentence, but if the words are flowing out, why stop them?
The only rule I want to give you here is this: make it fiction. You need to make something up here, we’re trying to make you creative and not just documenting. I want you to use your imagination.
Purge your thoughts on the page
You’ve probably heard of morning pages, and even if you can’t commit to writing them every day, they’re a good way to get yourself prepared for writing and to clear your mind.
You’ve probably got lots of things going on in your life that aren’t related to your writing, some of which might even stop you from writing because you’re so caught up in all that stuff. People are annoying, you’re worried about your exams, and on top of that, your toe is hurting. Put it all on the page. Get it out.
You’re “supposed to” write morning pages for three pages, but you can choose for yourself how much you want to write, or you could just set a timer for five minutes and write until it rings. You could also simply choose to write about some things in your life until you’ve got it all written down, and then stop. It’s up to you.
Make an observation
This is my favourite tip for improving your writing in the long run. Notice something interesting around you, or maybe even something interesting about you, and write it down. Preferably you’d keep all these observations in one place so that you can refer back to them later and use them in your actual writing.
If there’s nothing interesting around you and you do this morning routine in the same place every day, you could also make a commitment to notice something interesting later. I carry a little notebook with me so I can do this wherever I am, but you could write yourself a post-it note so that you’ll notice and remember to do it later, or you can set a reminder on your phone at a random time.
So what kind of observations should you make? Just notice anything interesting or unique around you. Maybe you saw some guy wipe his nose on the side of his Converse shoe, or maybe you heard someone say something so outrageous that you had to write it down. Maybe there’s nothing spectacular around you, but you could still notice how the light filters through the leaves of the maple tree in front of your office building.
When you do this regularly, it will help you make your writing more authentic and interesting. You don’t want to say what everyone else is saying – you want to put your own point of view on the page no matter what kind of characters you’re writing about. Only you can be you, so start getting better at it.
Read something inspiring
Reading is always a good idea and that’s why I carry a paperback with me in my handbag so I can whip it out whenever I have time. (Plus, it makes me look cool and mysterious.) Why not start your mornings by reading as well?
You can choose to continue a book you were already reading, or pick a book only meant for your morning readings. You can read something in order or pick a snippet here or there, and you could even look for quotes on the internet instead of picking up a book.
What counts as “inspiring” is completely up to you. Maya Angelou liked reading the bible or some poetry before her writing sessions, though when I tried her writing routine, I opted for Shakespeare instead. Maybe you want to read in the genre you’re writing in, or maybe you want to go for something completely different. It’s just about feeding your brain with something good.
Do nothing for three minutes
This is a super important daily practice for any creative humans. Before you can come up with ideas of your own, you need to make space for them.
Stop consuming content, stop looking for entertainment and stop trying to find something to occupy you, for a few minutes. Just be. Stare at a wall or look out the window. Maybe even go for a walk without your headphones for once.
Don’t tell me that it’s too difficult. The harder it is, the more you need it. You’ve trained your brain to need entertainment and noise 24/7, and that’s detrimental to your creativity, to your sleep and to so many other things your brain needs to do. Besides, if this is the hardest thing you need to do on any given day, you’re doing pretty well.
So, set that timer to three minutes, put away all entertainment and don’t do anything else besides hang out with your own thoughts. I believe in you.
Say affirmations
I’d say there are two types of affirmations: reminders and aspirations. Let me explain.
Sometimes, you need to be reminded of something, like how getting published doesn’t determine your worth. That’s an absolute fact. Your worth doesn’t depend on your success. But then, there are things you want to be true, like how you’re on your way to becoming a bestselling author. There’s no telling if that’s true, but it’s something you aspire to right now and something you’re actually working towards.
In my post about affirmations for writers, I focused on those important reminders, like my future readers are waiting for my book. Maybe I’ll write another post with more aspirational affirmations, but here are a few you can choose from:
- My book will be read and loved all over the world
- I will be the next [insert favourite author here]
- Agents will be fighting over me and my novel
- The Netflix show based on my novel will be so good
And what, exactly, is the point of affirmations? It is to get you in the proper headspace, to raise your mood and to put you on the right path. It’s easier to work on your writing when you feel like an accomplished, creative person destined for success rather than a loser whose stories nobody will want to read. Choose an affirmation and repeat it to yourself or write it down until you can feel it.
Hype yourself up
Even if affirmations are not your thing, you can still be your own hypeman/hypegal. Who then, if not you?
it’s easier to do this in writing than just by thinking, because it will keep you focused and you won’t find yourself thinking of your shopping list instead. Write things like “I’m really good at writing and I have so much fun, I love my story idea, I’ve got this, my word count is increasing all the time” etc.
Why should you do this? Because you need to believe in yourself, and like I said earlier, this whole writing thing is easier to do when you feel better about yourself doing it. You don’t need to wait until you reach some made-up goal before you can feel good about yourself and cheer yourself on – you deserve to do it right now.
Set goals for your writing session or your day
Opening Word and hoping for the best might not be the optimal way to reach your writing goals. What exactly are you going to achieve today? You need to have some idea of it!
You don’t need to know how many words you’re going to write because that could be difficult to predict, but you could set yourself a goal of writing at least a thousand words. You also might prefer not to have word count goals, so your goal could be to finish writing the cool fight scene you were in the middle of, or anything like that.
Besides your writing, you can also take this time to set goals for the rest of the day, but don’t think of absolutely everything you need to do. Just list the three most important things you need to get done, and don’t beat yourself up if something gets in the way of them.
Visualize your writing success
When I think about being a successful author, I don’t imagine all the thousands of euros on my bank account, I see myself surrounded by people who love my stories, because that’s who I’m doing all this for. I want to connect with people over space and time.
What I specifically like to think of when I’m visualizing my writing success is signing my books. I’m sitting behind a table and there’s a line of grateful readers waiting to get their books signed. I also like imagining what these people are like because I really like thinking about my readers.
For you, the best thing to visualize could be writing “the end” on your final draft, or it could be signing a publishing deal. It has to be something concrete that you can imagine yourself doing, and you need to dig into the feelings you want to feel.
You don’t need to believe in magic or manifestation to understand that visualization is an important part of success. Even professional athletes visualize themselves going down that hill successfully or crossing the finish line faster than anyone else. If you want to be a professional author, you also need to know where you’re going and see yourself going there.
Move around and stretch
Now, we’ve done a lot of inner work during this morning routine, and it’s time to get off our butts.
Unless you’ve got a standing desk and a walking pad (and you’re actually using them), writing is a pretty sedentary job. You’re all scrunched up with your laptop and it’s just your fingers going tappy-tappy-tap on your keyboard. Yes, getting up every now and then to walk around and stretch is a good idea, but you should get started that way as well. No point being all stiff to begin with.
Get up from the sofa and walk around a little bit, and even better if you can go outside and walk around the block or something. Touch the floor with your fingers with your legs straight and do a few deep squats, or at least try to do those things. Do big circles with your arms and small circles with your wrists. Stuff like that.
You could even look for a stretching or mobility routine on YouTube if you wanted to be fancy, but you could also just see what feels a little stiff and then move that way. Your body needs movement.
Set up your writing space
Before we finish all the prep work for your writing session, it’s time to set up your writing space. Do you need tidiness and calmness before you can write? Then do a quick tidy up first. Do you need a mugful of tea, a big water bottle and a bowl of cereal? Then get those things sorted.
Yes, doing this is probably obvious, but I want you to be intentional. Don’t start the day by neglecting yourself, think of what you NEED. Then, to protect yourself from future distractions, get all that ready before you begin. Your readers are waiting for you to finish writing that story.
Make your life easier with the simple writing tasks
I know it’s easy to overthink your writing instead of actually doing it, which is why I put together this database of writing tasks. Are they simple? Absolutely. I’m not even pretending it’s rocket science. But if you’re not making progress with your writing, you don’t need a complicated system, you need action.
So jot down your details in the form below and I’ll send you your writing tasks that will make your life 65% easier, guaranteed. And the, don’t just hide them in your Google account – pick one of the tasks and do it straight away, or after your next morning routine.
Protagonist Crafts is a blog about writing fiction, written by a published author and creative writing teacher. You can find more writing tips and inspiration in the blog and you can get the best author tools at Writer Lifestyle on Etsy.
