If you want to finish your novel, you need a non-negotiable writing space
Here's how I developed mine, and why it was so crucial.
I’ve always been a morning person.
Ever since I was a youngster (fully aware I sound like an old man right now, by the way), I’ve loved hopping out of bed, grabbing a bowl of cereal and plopping myself down in front of the TV. Back then it was Dexter’s Laboratory, these days it’s Frasier or The Office.
So it stood to reason that if I was to choose a certain time of day to write fiction, it should be early. The earlier the better, in fact.
That’s how I ended up having a standing appointment with my laptop at 6:30am for the guts of two years. During that time, I churned out two novels clocking in at over 100,000 words each - I know that isn’t much in the grand scheme of literature, but by 2023 standards, it’s dancing precariously along the line of publishability.
As a budding author, having that sort of regularity in my weekly routine was a real life-saver. But it didn’t come about by chance. Far from it, actually.
I started my first proper novel in spring 2020 (and I say “proper” because I’d already made three half-hearted attempts in my teens) and finished it in July 2021. However, I really should’ve had the thing knocked out by Christmas. The problem was, I spent most of The Year of COVID flailing about, writing in dribs and drabs, devoid of routine.
Let me tell you, that’s no way to write a novel.
I finally got my ducks in a row in the New Year, and my debut Young Adult fantasy novel started to take shape a heck of a lot faster than before. I probably wrote two thirds of it in six months after struggling through the first third for the bulk of the previous year.
What changed? I found my non-negotiable writing space.
Let me tell you how you can find one for yourself, if you haven’t already.
The When
I’ll start with the most important question to consider when pinpointing your writing space: when should it happen?
This was the real key that unlocked my productivity as an aspiring author.
For too long, I tried squeezing writing sessions in whenever I could: after work, during breaks, late in the evening. The actual “when” is entirely up to you, of course - if an evening writing burst suits you best, go with that. But as long as the “when” is consistent - as long as it happens at the same time every day, or as close to it as possible - it’ll have stickability.
My advice? Experiment a lot with this in the early stages of your novel-writing journey. Test the waters. Try writing early in the day (like me), or in an allotted slot in the afternoon, or in the evening when the kids are in bed and the house is finally quiet.
As long as you make that “when” an immovable appointment in your day (and try to write in a consistent daily rhythm, if you can), your story will stand an honest-to-goodness chance of making the jump from your head onto the page.
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