Thread by @startupdaemon

22 TIME-TESTED TECHNIQUES TO MAKE *GOOD* WRITING A CONSISTENT HABIT

What I have to share here is harsh.

Have no illusions about it.

The writing gods don’t care for prayers – they want sacrifice.

I didn’t come up with all these techniques yesterday. Many of them come from world-class writers and credit goes to them. But they all get at the same thing – conditioning your mind to produce great writing on command.

And they WORK when you DO the work.

If you’re serious about writing or your other creative work of choice, apply these techniques in combination for maximum effect. Implement them one at a time to make habituation easier, but stacking them is what will make you unstoppable.

1. Make writing prowess a centerpiece of your self-image.

To write well, DECIDE to to write well.

Until you firm up the decision to be a great writer, you’ll never become one.

Integrate writing into your Vision of Yoruself, your affirmations, your meditation practice.

2. Write every day.

If you care about writing, you surely have heard this one before, but it can never be said too many times. Tolstoy wrote every day, too – for decades.

If you have nothing to write about, start a daily journal, write down your workouts, WHATEVER.

Some famous writers only wrote on weekdays, but I don’t know what that word means.

If you want to get great and write great, you write daily. That’s it.

Wake up every day with the conviction that you’ll write every day for the rest of your life.

Write even if you’re producing complete garbage – or nothing at all.

Understand that “nothing at all” is a fake option. If you can’t make yourself write utter drivel when you can’t do better, you’ll never be a great writer.

3. Do your writing first.

If something’s important to you – like writing, – you get to it before anything else.

Brutal but necessary fact.

Get your writing in before distractions and fatigue catch on to you. You’re not making it tough on yourself by putting writing first – you’re making it easy.

If you have a day job, guess what – you go to bed earlier and get up earlier to do your writing before work. No excuses!

4. Schedule writing between midnight and noon.

Doesn't matter if you're "morning person" or a "night owl".

The 12-hour window of top creative productivity fits any silly limiting belief you may hold about yourself.

It’s immune to pathetic excuses.

5. Write at the same time every day.

This may not be obvious, but it’s how you prime your mind to BRING IT effortlessly. You mind will know it’s time to write and your writing mode is ON.

Trained repetition triggers hypnagogic dynamics making original and inspired work easy.

6. Write in the same place every day.

The mechanism is the same as with scheduling at the same time, but this can work in multiple places.

The point is to replicate the atmosphere and sensations the mind associates with writing.

Some writers have a study or special place in the home where they write. This is carefully engineered to optimize the mental dynamic (see below).

I also like to take my show on the road and write in parks and cafés – of a specific ambiance. The murmur of human voice is hypnotic.

7. Structure your writing space to minimize perceptual interference.

Everybody gets distracted in different ways, but there is one universal rule.

Leave your dumbphone in the other room – turned off.

Don’t have piles of stuff running off your writing desk.

Don’t sit facing a door or window, unless the view is pacifying.

Shut the door behind you and sit facing away from it.

Send a message to yourself and others that this is writing time, not distraction time.

8. Use physical activity to trigger your mind into action.

Mind is of movement and movement triggers energy and growth.

Kurt Vonnegut did pushups and situps while writing. I’ve done that and more. There’s no “slow vibe” when you turn your very writing routine into a workout.

9. Have a notebook handy at all times.

Inspiration can strike at any time, especially when you’re out moving. Don’t waste it.

Why struggle swimming upstream, when you can use the current to your advantage?

Using your phone to put down ideas should be a measure of last resort.

When you use a notebook, you avoid putting your mind in distraction-multitasking mode. It knows it’s writing time and one idea leads to another. Flow happens effortlessly.

10. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is done.

Writing time is not editing time.

You can always edit something you’ve already committed to the page. You can’t edit empty space.

Reserve writing time for writing, not editing, and don't interrupt your flow.

Every time you don’t resist the temptation to read what you’ve written so far and improve it, you’re shooting yourself in the writing foot.

Leverage writing momentum to fill your daily quota, improve your content it later.

Your editing will be more efficient and effective if you put time and space between it and your writing. Taking a step back allows you to see the big picture.

John Steinbeck, a famously prolific writer, used the same principle to avoid going nuts with his 400-page novels.

11. Forget the fracking audience and write.

This is another one of Steinbeck's tricks of the trade.

The bottom line is simple.

You grow as a writer and produce unique value only when you can comfortably send the audience and your mentors to go pound sand.

12. Work out outside of your writing time.

This is different from physical triggering while writing.

To write long hours without physical pain, you need conditioning no matter how you do your writing – sitting, lying, walking on a treadmill, flying a kite, whatever.

13. Reward yourself every time you complete your daily writing.

Work out, play the piano, cook your favorite food, mix yourself a cocktail, treat yourself in whatever non-destructive way you can.

AFTER the work is done, not before. NEVER before.

14. Program yourself to have good ideas while falling asleep.

Don’t dwell, don’t analyze, don’t worry. That’s self-sabotage. Simply outline mentally what you’re going to accomplish when you get up – and that you will get up on time to get writing fast and early.

When you hit the sheets don’t obsess with any creative stumbling block. Just ASSUME that you’ll get it sorted first thing when you wake up.

DECIDE it. Set your intentions. This is not about planning; it’s about setting your mind to solve what needs to be solved while you sleep.

15. Meditate to trigger writing flow.

This works like a charm, just not in the way you might expect.

Meditate to stop thinking.

You ever try to forget an elephant? If you try hard not to have writing ideas, your mind will soon be flooded with them.

16. Don’t eat before you write.

To get hungry, figuratively, keep hungry in the literal sense.

Don’t eat food until you’re well on your way to filling your writing quota for the day.

Many famous writers didn’t eat breakfast. They got to writing first thing in the morning.

17. Reserve your writing objects exclusively for writing.

Don’t use your “writing” pen, desk, laptop, room for anything other than writing.

This tactic may not be affordable for everyone, but it’s very powerful if you can stick to it.

Having a dedicated pocket notebook to write down ideas is one easy thing to do.

You will start having creative ideas while you’re on the go when you start carrying your notebook around.

Your reading should be done well ahead of your writing and physically separately from it.

If you read in your writing space, you shift your mental triggers towards consumption instead of production. You’re priming yourself to copy instead of create better ideas and insights.

18. Get a plant and tend to it at writing time – in your writing space.

This is the weirdest thing on the list.

It’s also the one thing that requires the least effort for the greatest effect. It’s easy and it fracking works.

Tend to the plant only about your writing time, NEVER outside of the writing window. Keep it as close as possible without interfering with your writing.

The plant will de-stress your writing time and environment. Your writng will GROW ALIVE together with your plant.

19. Push your schedule to make room for writing when you have your writing vibe on.

A lot of people will stop writing just because their dedicated writing time is over. They’ll even recommend you do that as a rule.

Don’t listen to such nonsense. Usually, it is a mistake.

20. Invert deadlines.

Many people will recommend manufacturing hard deadlines to make yourself perform. That’s a brute-force technique for desperate people without Vision and decision.

Set daily deadlines to START working, not big unwieldy deadlines to finish the work.

21. Write as a method of procrastination.

You have a bunch of other things to do that you don’t feel like doing?

You can write instead.

Set your intention to write every time you want to procrastinate on doing something else, and always keep some writing gear handy.

22. Use the hidden powers of the tea ceremony.

It’s the best ritual to kickstart your writing every day. Get in the habit of making yourself a cup of tea as you set out to write.

Stephen King used a tea ceremony to ditch coffee - and stay away from alcohol.

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