After reading about the importance of establishing a writing habit to becoming a better writer, I went on a mission to figure out my personal writing routine. Here are five key takeaways I’ve learned along the way:

1. Set a writing time. I write first thing in the morning. My morning routine: wake up, get ready, coffee, sit down with laptop and open Word. I have a full-time job, so writing before work allows me to cultivate and expend some of my creative energy before I get drowned in the minutia of email and an endless to-do list. Writing first thing makes me feel like I have power over my day—I set the tone by giving credence to my mind, whatever comes through it. I know that even if I don’t feel accomplished from the workday, I at least know I produced something and something tangible at that! Setting a writing time will help you establish a habit.
2. Make writing time writing time. When you sit down to write, give yourself permission and authority to be absent from the world outside your head. Open a blank page and do not open anything else—no email, no news of any kind, nothing (except maybe a dictionary). This can be difficult if you have writer’s block. Sometimes I wake up knowing what I’ll write about that day, but most often I don’t know, and I’ll be looking around my living room for inspiration or simply staring off into the distance. Sometimes the blinking cursor feels like it’s taunting me to write something big: “You think you have something important to say, huh?” (I imagine the cursor to have an accent on par with an Italian mobster.) The thing I’ve learned here is to not let the blank page stay blank for long—just start typing (or writing, if you’re a pen and paper kind of writer), even if it is just stream of consciousness. Having words on paper will make you feel better, and if you just keep moving your fingers/pen, you’ll feel more productive. It could be a story about how your toes are cold, or how you forgot to brush your teeth, or even negative self-talk about how you can’t seem to think of something to write (I find this is actually healthy to write out since you then see that even though you thought you didn’t have anything to say, you did write something—just make sure to give yourself a gold star or pat on the back afterward to help rectify that negativity). Who cares?! This is your time and whatever you have to say can stay on the page. But do put something there.
3. Write for at least 15 minutes. Sometimes even this small amount of time is a struggle for me, while other times I might write for hours. The key is to hold myself accountable for a minimum amount of writing time. This makes those writer block days easier, knowing that it won’t last forever but also knowing that it is important to put words on a page for a little bit, whether they be the Next Great Idea or word vomit.
4. Write most days each week. To make anything a habit, you have to do it a lot. At first, I thought that setting a goal to write everyday was unrealistic and unsustainable. But it wasn’t. I’ve written every day for the past 67 days (yes, I went so far as to count them). It didn’t take long for my writing time to feel like second nature. Even if you write four days a week, that is still a majority of the days. The important thing I learned is, again, to hold myself accountable. Even if I know it’s going to be a gibberish kind of writing session, I will sit down and write gibberish. Because writing day is writing day! For me to feel like a “writer,” I need to do it a lot. This isn’t a weekend warrior kind of gig.
5. Post your writing every once in a while. I’ve learned that part of holding myself accountable to my writing habit is occasionally putting my writing somewhere visible, so I started this blog. I only ever start my writing session as a freewrite (low pressure), but sometimes it does take off and I come out with a masterpiece. Kidding. It’s never a masterpiece, but you do get a sense of when something could be turned into a bigger piece, or even a story. When that happens, I write and rewrite until I feel I have a complete(ish) product. Sometimes that happens over the course of a day, sometimes over several days. The point is that I make myself post it. Clicking the post button used to cause me anxiety, but then I realized who am I kidding? These posts are really just for me, to help me practice my writing, get to know my voice as a writer, and understand which posts I feel most proud of. The latter is important for helping me find my niche, where I feel comfy and cozy. My key takeaway about posting is that it’s more of a personal rather than public matter. It’s not only more forgiving to write from intrinsic motivation, but also more rewarding.