Neil Gaiman's Writing Routine Will Give You Permission To Write

Ready to get off the struggle bus of writing? Too many ideas,? Can't organize your thoughts? Sharing my ideas used to be a constant struggle until I got rid of the restrictions and started creating a writing routine that gave me permission to allow the creative flow I craved. Intentional journaling has transformed my approach to writing daily and I know it'll do the same for you!

Chapters

00:00
Overcoming Procrastination in Writing

05:43
Finding Inspiration and New Methods

09:13
The Intentional Journaling Roadmap

15:29
Utilizing the Pomodoro Technique

19:07
Reframing Writing as a Creative Process

24:00
Embracing Intentional Journaling for Creativity

Let's Connect: https://linktr.ee/ashleetate

Transcript

Ashlee Tate (00:01)
Hey, Fierce Visionaries, welcome to the Practice Your Perfect podcast. If you're new to the channel, I am your fairy goal mother. We're trying that one out, Ashlee Tate. And today we're talking about the goal of getting those words on the page. Okay, it's really tough to increase your profit purpose and productivity if you don't know how to get your message out into the world or share that you might need to set some boundaries with people so that you can be more productive, so that you can

create the space to unleash your something amazing. So in today's video, we're getting rid of all that procrastination. We are going to start getting those words on the page. And honestly, just so you guys know, I have struggled with this same exact feeling for such a long time. And when I talk about a long time, mean like years. So writing has literally always been a real struggle for me, struggle for me. Sorry.

Writing has always been a real struggle for me. I don't know what it is about writing that makes me feel like it needs to be perfect. I mean, I love creating something, but I think maybe I put too much pressure on the final product and feel like it needs to have some form of perfection associated with it. So even though I understand the idea of not editing while you're writing and the art of revisions, and I just keep finding myself

blocked whenever I sat down to write. So I really wanted to share this new method that I've used for writing and really sharing my thoughts with the world and just overall finding a way to move past that procrastination, because y'all procrastination became like my best friend, okay? But last year, I stumbled upon a method that I kind of, you know, inadvertently created, not really, it wasn't like a goal to create this, but

it really has unlocked like the floodgates of ideas and you know, whether you're a blogger or content creator or simply someone grappling with, you know, writer's block, this approach might really help you get a breakthrough. So the real thing that I think it comes down to is a fear of writing. I think it feels overwhelming and daunting and you know, not getting it out the right way or will people understand it or like.

you know, sometimes my ideas are in there, but they're all jumbled up and not organized. and so I felt like it was more of a struggle to get the words out in an organized fashion. And since they were never coming out that way, I just decided that I just wouldn't do it. Right. So, part of that though, is like the, the other side of that is like, you're like, I have so many things to say, and maybe you're somebody just like me that wants to express your ideas, but doesn't really know how.

And so in today's video, I really wanna talk about how to achieve that goal and how to get those words on the page. So I am completely guilty of that same feeling. Let's get into this because like I said, know, procrastination being your best friend is not a good place to be, okay? I was not producing anything. I wasn't producing blogs, no podcasts, no threads, no tweets, no captions, nothing. Even though I was full of all of these ideas that I think

could really help the world and really get my message out there. just wasn't able to, for some reason, really express what that would look like, okay, like for you guys. And so it was feeling like I was holding myself back, like it was a major struggle. And if you're anything, I mean, if you've felt like this, okay.

So as a content creator in some form,

As a content creator,

So as a content creator in some form or another for the past seven years, I've often found myself struggling to just articulate my thoughts very clearly, whether it's on a video or it's in a short form video, whatever it is. And I used to rush into recording videos with only a few scattered points. And that really just results in murky content. And murky content does not get you subscribers. It doesn't get you.

any further with your message. It doesn't help people really understand like who you are. And then that kind of created a cycle. And so then I was avoiding writing and then that became a habit since it wasn't really my forte and like who really enjoys grappling with weaknesses, right? Like we wanna avoid working with our weaknesses as much as possible. And that's just human nature. So if you're feeling as though you are...

avoiding that writing. think that this process that I've come up with will really be helpful to you. It's been a game changer for me. And, you know, I obviously still fall back into some feelings of procrastination, feelings of perfectionism and wanting things to be right. But this, this always kind of pulls you back into the freedom to create. So I really want to jump into this. Let's jump in. Let's jump in. Okay.

So when I kind of got to this point where something had to change, one of the first things that I realized was like, I needed a fresh perspective. Like I needed to really kind of just take a hiatus away from writing and like I really refrained from pressuring myself to write. I actually probably didn't even, I don't think I wrote on my computer. I don't think I like wrote on paper just for a long time. I just, needed a break. And I think sometimes those breaks are really

beneficial for you. And during that time, I thought, you know what, I'm just gonna start like seeking inspiration and trying to see like what I need, trying different things, being open to different ways to write and different ways to learn from other people. So I started really looking on YouTube and finding different videos that might be helpful to me. And I stumbled upon a YouTuber named Christy Anne Jones.

And she has a great channel by the way, and she talks all about writing on that channel. And so I thought, let me just follow her and see what she's over there talking about, right? So she had an experiment where she was working with the famous author, Neil Gaiman, and he's the author that wrote Coraline. So one of the things I really liked about that particular video, because I'd watched a few videos from her, like, know, Stephen King and a couple of other writers.

Now don't think of myself as a writer like that, but I thought that was a good way to find inspiration and a good way to really think about writing and see how these people are able to produce these massive books and like multiple books and just kind of learn from them, right? Sometimes we have to step back into that learner self and really start to take in information from the people who have already done it, right? the gurus. So.

Anyway, what I loved about this is that he gave himself permission to not write, even though that's what he does. Like that's your only option. You can do nothing or write for five hours. And he did it between the hours of one and 6 PM and he could only have a pen and a notebook and no computer. had to be as far away from his computer as possible. and so the way he kind of describes it is that he would go out into a gazebo and he would only have this pen and his notebook.

And he would sit out there for five hours and just give himself the option to either write or not write. And I was really intrigued by this. So I decided to kind of adopt a modified version of his routine. I did try his routine like he did it maybe like a day or two. And I'll talk about that a little bit later, but I incorporated a couple of other things that I think would make this process more realistic for those of us that

work and have families and have other things going on. So I kind of modified it to work to see what's.

So I incorporated a few things that worked best for my lifestyle that I wanted to share in today's episode. That's how I came up with this intentional.

And this is how I came up with the intentional journaling roadmap. So let's jump in.

So of course I started with Neil Gaiman's, do nothing or write for five hours. I tried that and there were some things I needed to change. And to be honest, I really did love the four to five hour trial that I did. was amazing. I felt like I got some major progress. I felt like I made some, no.

I felt like I made some major progress. I thought it was a great exercise in just shutting out the world and being able to write for 4 to 5 hours, but it was extremely unrealistic. So as a mom and running a nonprofit and all of those things, like it just wasn't gonna work. So what it showed me was that I had the content.

Okay, the content is there. Like you probably have all of the things you want to say, you just might have too many things to say and not know how to get them out. So it made me realize that I had way more to say than the given amount of time of four to five hours, which is pretty cool to figure out. So that was kind of a breakthrough of its own on its own.

Although it was unrealistic, what it showed me was that the content was there. Like I had more than enough to keep writing. could have, you know, given the amount of time and the permission to do nothing or write, I could just continue writing forever and ever. So I do absolutely recommend you try it for a day or two, like, and put it in your schedule that you're gonna schedule out this amount of time to write, just to kind of give you some breakthroughs and to kind of see what you naturally think about, what you naturally wanna talk about.

what thoughts you can kind of expand on that you really didn't realize that you had to be able to do this, right? And...

You know, honestly, the experiment of allowing yourself to do nothing is like shaking a snow globe and then finally setting it down. And what that means is like the, when you shake the snow globe, you know how there's all those things floating around. Okay, so that was kind of like all the thoughts we have in our minds, all the things we have to do and get done and the to-do list and, you know, pick up kids and do this and send emails and.

When you set that globe down, what it allows you to do is just watch everything settle. That permission to say, I'm not going to focus on anything else except this is the settling of all the snow in the snow globe. That's how it felt to me. So that was kind of the first aha moment. And I'll come back to this in a minute, but really that was super helpful to just realize that maybe that's the problem, right? Maybe that's one of the issues.

So then I realized writing seemed way more enticing than just sitting there for four to five hours or just sitting in general. And you might find yourself sitting for, you know, five minutes or 10 minutes, but you're going to eventually realize that writing is much more enticing than just sitting. And some days you might not have the energy to write, but it allows your mind a minute to kind of reset. And that's what I really loved about trying this process out.

Because that's what it really did is it just gave a minute to reset your brain like slow it down and reset so you guys know I love a reset on this channel, so so the next thing was I decided to you know Sitting and just writing is nice. But again that perfectionism came out and it was like hey like what are we writing about? What are we trying to say here? What's the goal and?

I realized that the goal is actually just to write. So I went back to the morning pages from The Artist's Way and I've used that in the past. And I thought, you know what? One of those days I'm just gonna brain dump. And I did, and I just sat and the brain dump was absolutely necessary. So as I'm practicing this experiment, I'm also learning about what I needed. And I think that's the beauty of

when you practice things, you learn and you get feedback and you get this information about what you need and what's gonna work best for you in your lifestyle and how you do things. So that was the second piece. Now, in The Artist's Way, she has you write three full pages of this brain dump. I didn't do the three full pages. I just wrote the brain dump until I felt like I had it coming out. And honestly, what I actually incorporated into the intentional journaling process was,

not only the permission to choose to write or do nothing, but also the permission to go back and forth between brain dumping and actually writing something. So I used it as just a place to let my thoughts wander freely. And it feels a little, what's the word I want to say?

It feels a little discombobulating when you first do it because you feel like you're wasting time. But when you take the time to come back to it later, maybe the next day or that evening, and you look through some of your notes, there's a lot of gold in there. And that's what you can kind of build off of and then go back and type into some form of a blog post or a caption or a thread or a tweet, whatever it is that you need to use it for. But what it allows you to do is to capture

while your brain is in that creative mode. So I really recommend adding those two things in as well, because the stream of consciousness without censoring was also another form of permission for myself.

So I just want to go back to the four to five hour period of time that I said I would come back to because that gave me another big aha about myself, which is the four to five hours or a really long extended amount of time wasn't something that was necessarily gonna be helpful to me. I don't know if I have ADHD or not, but the lizard brain was going insane.

the lizard brain was like, we need to eat. We have to make matcha. We have to do this. We have to go pick up the kids. We have to do it. And it was hard to keep it focused for, you know, two hours at a time. So what I realized was that a technique that I've been using for a very long time in my life is the Pomodoro method. And what I loved about the Pomodoro method is that it allows you to focus for 25 minutes.

and you focus on whatever it is that you're doing for 25 minutes. I think it's a fantastic way to study, read, to do anything, to write, all of the things. So I used the Pomodoro method and what it allowed me to do was to break up those hours into two 25 minute intervals and then I had a five minute break in between. And when I talked about resetting my brain, this is one of those things where you reset your brain the most. So.

you tell your brain we're gonna focus for 25 minutes, then we'll get up and we'll check the phone and we'll go get coffee or we'll go do whatever you need to do for five minutes. And go use the restroom, whatever you have to do. And it's just five minutes. And it allows you to check back in to reality. See, I have kids, like sometimes they might text or need something. You might have phone calls that came through that you just need to text a response back and then say you can get back to them after.

your period of time that you're working on writing. And I felt like it was just very freeing to be able to tell myself, 25 minutes we're gonna focus and in five minutes, nothing's gonna happen in 25 minutes. That's what I came to realize. Like nothing's really gonna happen in 25 minutes that you can't get back to and address in those five minute breaks. So I love that. And it was extremely helpful for me to have the 25 minute break.

And one of the things that you'll, one of the things that...

One of the things that you'll probably end up noticing is that if you have the time to write for four or five hours, which if you do, you have an amazing life. But if you have the time to write for four or five hours and you start to use those Pomodoro, no.

and you start to use the Pomodoro technique, you'll realize that you can actually write a lot longer than you think because with those breaks, two hours goes by with four sessions of the Pomodoro technique and two breaks in between, two or three breaks in between. So it's a really nice way to kind of use that period of time that could feel longer and you're getting a lot more done, but you're actually taking breaks when necessary.

Now this whole process, what I love most about it, wait.

no matter what it is that you want to write, it isn't necessarily our belief in ourselves that puts the feeling of blocking on us for writing. It's more of the restrictions that we give ourselves that hold us back from really sharing our gifts with the world. And this whole process kind of gave me a reframe about writing, right? Like now I see it as a way to share my gifts, share my message with the world rather than a way to

perfectly put out a message right and produce the perfect piece for someone to Someone to read or someone to watch or whatever the case What I really came to realize was that the time wasn't the issue It was really giving myself the permission to do nothing or to write because every time I'd sit down to write and you may feel the same way as like every time I sit down to write I felt like I was actually wasting time and that I was

not necessarily producing a final product and I was wasting that time when I could be focusing on producing a final product. But what I finally came to realize is that giving myself the permission to modify the time that I wrote, giving myself permission to only write for 25 minutes, right? Wait, wait, just back up.

But what I came to realize through this intentional journaling process and putting all of those pieces together is that all of those areas were just permissions that I was giving myself. I was giving myself the permission to maybe only write for 25 minutes, but also do nothing or write for four to five hours if I had the time. But I was really never going to fail if I just sat down for 25 minutes a day at a minimum and just wrote.

And then the second permission was to write about anything and everything, not in any specific way, not a brain dump first and then the content. But I could write about anything whenever I wanted to. could write about content first if I had a great idea, then I could go into a brain dump and add some notes. And it really opened up almost like a childlike feeling again, like when we used to sit down and just, you could write whatever you wanted. And honestly, when I stopped to think about this,

When you think about what you were doing between like the ages of six to 10, and you were kind of like free and able to do whatever you wanted, I used to write these stories all the time about, I would cut out people out of the JCPenney Magazine and I would write stories about them on the side and then sell those books, sorry, I would sell those books to neighbors and...

I feel like it's kind of doing the same thing, right? Like you're writing stories, you're doing the things, you're coming up with ideas, and then you're sharing that with the world. And that's the permission that we give ourselves when we say, okay, we don't have to have this really strict routine of writing, and it doesn't have to be for hours on end. It doesn't have to be like anyone else. We just have to show up and we have to do it for 25 minutes, and it's free flowing and really

a way to unlock that creativity that we all have inside of us, but that we have put so many restrictions on over time and intentional journaling really takes those restrictions away, but allows you to modify it in a way that's best for your lifestyle.

One of the things that I also found that was pretty funny was like I did kind of find that, know, as much as I've always loved pen and paper, I really found it super satisfying to just have pen and paper away from a computer, away from your phone, away from all the electronics and just write in that for a long period of time. Because it really allows your ideas to flow unhindered. You're just literally going from brain to hand.

to paper, like that's it. And it was really awesome, I loved it. So anyway, experiment with different writing techniques, you guys. get out there and kind of read what you feel, you no.

So what I found is by embracing this intentional journey of like, wow.

So what I found by embracing intentional journaling is that, you know, using these times to experiment and kind of try different writing techniques and all of these things have really transformed the approach to my writing. And it's no longer really a daunting task. It's not something I feel that I'm going to, that I have to do. I feel like it's almost like a liberating journey that I get to sit down and just kind of express myself fully.

and find that creativity and just kind of lean into it. So if you find yourself struggling with writing, really consider giving intentional journaling a try because it might literally just be the key to unlocking your creativity to help you get out there and really unleash your something amazing to the world. So I want you to practice this and stay fierce and I will see you next time. Nope.

So until next time, practice this and stay fierce. And let me know down in the comments, one of the things that you've been putting restrictions on yourself for writing or being creative, like sometimes it's just the restrictions that we don't really realize that we need the permission to do that's holding us back from our journey. until next time, practice this, stay fierce on you. No, okay.

So until next time, stay fierce on your goals. No, Ashlee, this is easy.

So until next time, practice this and stay fierce on your goals and I'll see you guys soon. Bye.

So until next time, practice this and stay fierce on your goals. Bye.