Fuck The Routine

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Blame it on the algorithm, but a few years ago, when I started writing professionally, I was bombarded with 'Routines of Famous Writers' social media posts and blogs.

From them, I gained precisely no insightful guidance on how to be a writer, except that actually writing was essential. But I had already figured that out. They did, however, give me mild neuroses that I was somehow writing wrong, doing too little, or following a sub-par routine when there was a better one out there. 

Thankfully, out of necessity to actually meet client deadlines—anyone curious about becoming a writer get some content writing clients, the pace is vicious and the pay is often poor so you literally cannot afford to spend hours agonising over comma placement or zingy opening lines—I pushed aside what I perceived to be some sort of external societal-creative-spiritual doctrine, and focused on writing.  

To this day, I pride myself on having no writing routine, just a vague sense of what must be done by when. And I do okay. Could I be more productive? Potentially. Could I be more productive and not stress about being more productive? Doubtful.   

The reality is I write most days but not every day. I have gone through phases of spending hours at a computer to write no more than fifty words—before I delete them. Sometimes, I can rattle off 1,000 words in an hour, give or take a few hundred words or minutes here and there. Also, what people often gloss over in these writer routine things is that the most consuming (mentally and time-wise) part is the aftermath: the re-draft, editing for sense, structure, and narrative; line edits; fact-checking; grammar and spelling.   

The reality also is I have a chronic health condition that is a wild roller coaster ride of unpredictable pain, brain fog, and collapsing vision. This past year, I watched my house burn down. I lost my baby (feline, not human, but my baby nonetheless). I left the country on the other side of the world I had been trapped in for three years due to the pandemic, but which had also become home (there's some poetic, albeit mildly distasteful, irony about being a British person unable to leave Australia due to government policy). I assumed when I left Australia, it would be for six months, but my boyfriend quit his job, and we decided we were done there. I never got to do the proper goodbyes. I had, in a small, less devastating, but still destabilising way, lost a home again: now I needed to replace not just the physical structure but the entire location. I lived with my best friend, her husband, and their box-fresh baby (who happens to be my delightful godson) for five months in their house undergoing serious renovations. I lived without my boyfriend for five months. When he moved back, burnt out and unemployed, we bounced around Europe for a little bit (this was lovely, but I can't help feeling it would have been more lovely if it felt like a proper choice as opposed to the most appealing option given that we have nowhere to be). I got my Austrian citizenship, which has been marvellous; but it has also been an introspective experience of examining my ancestor's lives and what it means to be stripped of your citizenship and homeland—and above all, survive. Because 6 million of their (religious? Ethnic? Cultural? Racial?) peers didn't. I settled in Vienna (settling in Austria is a puzzling process of registering with a million different bodies, most of which I don't understand but are somehow relevant for legitimising me as a person here. All of this is in German. And no, I don't speak German, especially not bureaucratic German). Most recently, I had Covid—and I feel lucky it only took three weeks to shake off the lingering fatigue.    

And throughout this, I was writing. I won't tell you how many words I've written, but Grammarly is constantly assuring me that I have been insanely productive. I also have several hundred pages of personal and client projects that attest to the fact I have most definitely been writing. 

Even during my best, most stable times, I'm not famed amongst my close friends (and now you) as being the most emotionally balanced person. And all this is to say, that if I was beholden to any form of writing routine, I probably would have written little to nothing this past year. Routines are predicated on habit, and habit requires a certain amount of predictability.

But I did stop writing for a time, of course.

After I had replaced my laptop, I discovered I could not write. This was somewhat of a surprise, as I was able to, through the wonder of backups and Time Machine, recreate my laptop completely, hard drive and all. I lost no word of my novel, no half-done client work. I had thought this would be reassuring. I was spending my days desperately trying to salvage my belongings. And here I had one of my most cherished possessions—my words and the creativity they housed—unscathed. In the midst of such devastation, it was disorienting and deeply perturbing to have something completely unmarked.

So, I promptly shut my laptop. I informed my clients I was taking leave. I used my laptop only when absolutely necessary—like for getting an emergency passport. And most importantly, to watch old Project Runway episodes and play glitchy Scrabble games against a bot.

But, I did not write. I tried to write.

But I did not write.

At some point, I decided to tackle this writing thing. The process of not writing was becoming something I was thinking too much about. So I might as well use that agonising process of thinking about writing to begin the agonising process of trying to find my way back to writing.

So whilst sequestered in my best friend's attic (the most gorgeous, delightful attic room you can imagine, with views over the rolling Cotswold hills), I sat down to write. It was horrific. I became fixated on needing to resume my writing projects, personal and for clients because they existed from the before time. They were, in many ways, my link back to life before this grief and trauma.

I spent several weeks forcing myself to write. It wouldn’t happen without a framework. I tried time periods ranging from a few minutes to twenty minutes; time goals made me panic. I tried documenting how many words I managed to write in any given period I sat down. Someone suggested writing about the fire; it was awful, and so destabilising I became fearful of writing.

And then I needed a more tangible goal, even if I knew I couldn't meet it. My goal-setting philosophy is, what do you believe you can do? Then cut it in half. Then pare it down for when you feel terrible/unexpected interruptions occur. I settled on 100 words. The aim was 100 words.

I wasn't demanding I write daily, just, when it was possible to write, I aimed for 100 words.

Many days I didn't, couldn't, hit that. Words had become evasive, no longer things that could be strung together but individual units whose coherence alongside each other I was never sure of.

But, writing a solitary mundane sentence, perhaps coming in at forty or so words, good, great. Something. Some days, 112 words. Glorious. And when it came to editing client work, I did one paragraph a day. Bless my clients for humouring me with the world's slowest turnaround time.

Was this, perhaps, a writing routine? Maybe so.

But it was characterised by flexibility, predicated on no expectations and just a single sigh of disappointment when it didn't work. It was the way I could rebuild writing. And it's one that sustained my work, my novel, me.

It's a far fucking cry from 500 words a day; or writing first thing in the morning; or lighting a bergamot-scented candle, cueing up the white noise, and adhering to twenty-five-minute bursts of activity. There is nothing wrong with these if they work for you. But that's the trick if you are trying to establish any sort of long-term relationship with any sort of creative endeavour: what works for you? After all, neither Ernest Hemingway, nor Maya Angelou, nor Henry Miller were googling how other writers write.

Certain routines and rituals can be a lovely support. But, as someone who knows all too well that things can fall apart, I prefer to hedge my bets on a chaotic writing life. Sometimes chaos comes in the form of an unexpected phone call that must be answered, an inconveniently timed appointment, a glass of spilt milk. The chaos is not going anywhere; but neither is the creativity. It won't abscond just because you could only start writing at 4 pm, not 4 am. It may be less than ideal, but what isn't these days?

I have nothing against routines; I wish I could adhere to them better. But that's not really an option for me (it's not an option because of the chronic headaches and migraines. I have spoken to a lot of other people about how they adjust their lives around other chronic illnesses, or having children, or their work life. Something I have observed is that a gendered dynamic plays into being able to honour a routine, but that's another substack for another time).

Your life is different from your favourite writer’s. And you are not who you were a day, a year, or ten years ago. Because life is flux. Because even when life is stable, you may not be. You will be tired, or ill, or sad. Or busy with the delights—falling in love or lust, being on holiday, or too happy and content to force yourself to write. You may just not feel like it.

I suppose I am trying to say that finding a way to co-exist with your creativity is a nicer, more sustainable way of honouring it than forcing a routine. Even when you abandon it or it abandons you, you can find your way back to each other. That creativity is flexible, as are you.

Above all, I am saying, fuck the routine.

*All Images by Miroslava on the Noun Project

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