My Daily Writing Ritual

What’s your daily writing ritual?

Here’s mine: I wake up at 5:30 AM so I can get to my office early for 30 minutes of writing before my work day starts. (I have a 45-50 minute commute.)

On good days, I get out of the house with only 15 minutes of goodbyes to Girl Child. Somedays she needs a lot more attention. On those days, I don’t write in the morning.

If I get to work early — before there are co-workers and emergencies — I write for 30 minutes.

On days when the work was waiting for me, I don’t write in the morning.

Or if there is freelance manuscript editing to do, I don’t write in the morning.

Or if I need to work on self-publishing my novel — reviewing proofs, buying ISBNs and filing copyright and researching BISAC codes, I don’t write in the morning.

On days that I don’t write in the morning, I try to squeeze in 30 minutes writing while sitting in the parking lot of Girl Child’s dance studio, or art studio, or tutoring facility.

Unless I’m at the gym. Or working.

Go to bed at 9 PM. Fall asleep thinking about at least one of my four in-progress stories. I’ve trained my brain to remember those thoughts, so I can wake up ready to write.

It’s not glamorous, it’s not immersive, and it’s not as much writing as I would like.

But by the gods I wake up every day with one goal: Get those 30 minutes of writing. Somehow.

How about you?