Develop a Routine to Cultivate Creativity

Editors, writers and teachers alike preach create a writing routine, a regimen, an envelope of time every day to sit quietly and sneeze words across your computer or notebook. This routine not only helps you to focus, it stirs your creativity every day, maintaining fresh ideas and discovering new ones. Stagnation is a writer’s bane. Don’t depend on inspiration to motivate you. Writing is a muscle; exercise it.

Every writer is unique, therefore needs a unique routine. If you are a morning person, allot an extra 20 or 30 minutes to journal in the morning. Try walking straight to your notebook the second you stumble from bed. Your subconscious is firing helter skelter after several hours of REM stage. Indulge and explore dreams as they remain fresh.

If mornings don’t work, try afternoons or evenings. Your mind is worn from the daily drudgery by nightfall and may struggle to focus, or it may pontificate on the experiences of that day.

Try different routines and time periods. Pick the same location and writing vessel. The most important variable, though, is seclusion. Avoid distractions. If you write on a computer DO NOT open a Web browser.

Even if you think you have nothing to write about, write something. Free write. Turn off the lights, shut your eyes and let your mind wander boundless, no concerns of grammar, spelling or semantics. Treat your writing like meditation. You don’t have to produce a poem or paragraph every time you write something. You don’t have to edit or proofread during these sessions. This routine is designed to cultivate creativity. If at the end of your half hour, two pages or even two paragraphs of nonsense sit on your computer, at least you set down to perpetuate your routine. And tomorrow you should do the same. Eventually, your mind will adjust to this schedule and ideas will flow.