Episode 4: The 3 Possible Approaches to Finding A Consistent Writing Practice

Inspired by a conversation with another writer about finding strategies for being consistent with your writing.

In this episode, Book Coach Stephanie Oswald talks about three possible approaches to finding a consistent writing practice. 

As someone who has self-diagnosed herself with ADHD, Stephanie shares how the strategies can be especially helpful if you identify as neurodivergent. 

It can be challenging to find consistency, especially when life throws curveballs, and so finding strategies can be helpful. And maybe, the word consistency is a bit triggering, so Stephanie encourages you to think about how you want to show up for yourself. 

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Transcript

Stephanie: 0:01

Hello, listener. Welcome back to the Love Is Brewing podcast. I'm your host, Stephanie Oswald. I'm a contemporary romance book coach for writers who are writing their first novel. I'm here to help guide you through coming up with your first ideas, getting those on paper and getting your first chapters written. I am here today to talk to you about something that was on my mind earlier today, and it's been on my mind for quite some time, but it came back to the forefront this morning when I was thinking about consistency and I was thinking about how I put a lot of pressure on myself when it comes to being consistent with my writing, and sometimes it's not always realistic for what I have the capacity for from day to day or what I have time for, and so I was thinking about how can I come up with a system that allows for greater consistency? And this might look different for you than it does for me, and these tips that I'm going to share with you may or may not work. But it's always worth a try. I'm always trying new things because sometimes previous systems didn't work. But there are a couple of things I've learned from following authors that I love and also from my own trial and error. And one of the things, one of the first things that comes to mind for me with consistency is finding somebody to write with or finding a writing group that meets consistently, and this doesn't have to be every day. Now I know there's some people who like to write every day, and that's wonderful. But sometimes consistency means that you show up a couple of times a week, and if you can find a writing partner or group of some kind. What I really love about that is that I. I can reach out to a writing friend, say, Hey, do you have time to write today? We pick a time, we hop on Zoom, we share with each other what we want to write, and then we turn off our audio and our camera and we write. And why I find this works so well is because in many of my deep dives of learning about myself, one of the things that I've come to recognize is that I have a DHD, now I've self-diagnosed. And so again, when I think about consistency and the value of having a writing partner of some kind to call upon is just that it allows for you to have that. Person who is essentially doing what's called body doubling, especially if you're someone who identifies in some way with A DHD or being neurodivergent, and that allows for. You to get work done because I know for me, there's something about having someone on the other side of the screen, even if I can't see them, but just knowing that they're there working through their own writing process while I'm working through mine, that it's incredibly motivating and helpful for me to get work done. So with. Thinking about being consistent for yourself. Do you know someone that you can call upon to do this? And, and this is one of the reasons why for some people hiring a book coach is the choice that they make because. They have a naturally built in accountability person, uh, for them to get their writing done. And for some people, all they need is that once a week check-in to be consistent with their writing, because there's the time in between when you know you're gonna have to show up the next week. To talk with your coach that you want to have gotten some work done. And sometimes, you know, life throws curve balls and stuff doesn't go quite as planned. And we all know that happens. But again, you know, thinking about how can you show up for yourself and your writing and. The word consistency might be a little bit of a trigger, um, but it's thinking about how are you showing up for yourself? How are you showing up as the writer, the author, the person whose book you wanna have out in the world? Thinking about all those pieces can all be centered around this idea of consistency. One of the other things that I learned from is taking a page of your notebook. Putting squares, putting how many pages per day you plan to write, or how many words per day you plan to write. And each time when you accomplish that, you simply color in the square. Now this can be real part of the reason why I recommend doing it in a notebook. And getting some fun marker colors to, you know, make it more fun for yourself. At least that would work for me. Maybe it doesn't work for you, but it would work for me. Um, is because there's something about that connection between using your hand to do something and the connection to your brain. So there's a greater connection between marking a task off, whether it's on a list or in this case, you know, a box on a page that has a number, or for how many words or how many pages. And when you color that in, it imprints in your mind and it creates a pattern and eventually that pattern is small, little habits. If you've read Atomic Habits by James Clear, he talks about, you know, small steps that eventually build upon each other, lead to habits, and then lead to greater, uh, change for yourself. And so, um, I definitely recommend that book. If you haven't read it, I often go back to it time and time again. Um. And it's a very helpful approach to thinking about building habits for yourself. And so this idea of coloring in a square and. It gives you that visual check-in to see your progress, which can be really helpful too. Sometimes if we put something on our phone or on our computer, we don't always have that immediate visual check-in, but if you put it on a notebook page, tear out the notebook page, put it up in your workspace or in. The case for me, I'd probably be carrying my notebook around and checking in on it every day.'cause I don't have a designated workspace for myself. Coffee shops tend to be one of my dedicated workspaces because I like the ambiance of that environment. But. Again, the visual check-in is another piece that is very powerful with if you identify with A DHD or being neuro neurodivergent is, um, not only having someone else to write with, but something visual to check in with them. So, um. The other piece that you can think of, when thinking about creating consistency for yourself is maybe writing every day is what works for you. And so even at the beginning I said, you don't have to write every day. I'm bookending this conversation with talking about writing every day because for some people that is what. Builds the consistency. Now, if you use a program like Scrivener, one of the cool things in Scrivener is Scrivener keeps track of your writing history. So you can go back and you can see on a daily basis how many words you're writing, and it'll track it for you, which is a, which can be really nice and, you know, can kind of create this sense of. Real recognition of how you're showing up for yourself. And, also if you're using Google Docs or Word, you can always, mark where you start for the day. And there are tools for word count that you can check in for the day. But it is kind of nice. I will say put a little plug in for Scribner here, since I do love that program. Uh, for writing is. It naturally keeps track of it. Um, and you can see how many words you're writing on a daily basis there. And of course it keeps track at the bottom of the screen for each, uh, you know, chapter that you're writing. There are all different ways that you can track that if that's something that works for you. Or maybe you just show up consistently for a certain amount of time. Maybe it's not about how many words you're writing. Maybe it's okay, I'm gonna write for 10 minutes. I have this time and have your computer, you have your phone, you have a notebook, you have whatever medium that you're using for writing. Then you set a timer for 10 minutes and you say, I'm gonna write. And maybe every day it also looks like, you know what's the best time of day for you, evaluate, can you get more done in the morning? Do you get more done in the middle of the afternoon? Do you get more done in the evening? You know, what's your best time for productivity? And give yourself a window of time in that space. And, and there definitely is, you know, evidence that writing in short sprints is often better than. Trying to write for a long period of time, that can tend to be very cumbersome and overwhelming. So again, listener, this is something that was on my mind. It comes up time and time again with people I work with and so if this is something that resonates with you, please let me send me a comment. Follow me on Instagram at Steph dot Oswald book coach. Um, I'd love to connect with you there. And until next time, happy writing.