I don't have a writing routine and I no longer feel guilty about it
I’ve always envied writers who can wake up every morning and churn out twenty pages without fail. They have a set routine and stick to it, despite whatever else is going on in their lives. I am the sort of writer who, outside of the classroom or workshop, writes only when the mood hits. I hate how pretentious this might come off, but as a poet, I reject the notion that writing should be mechanical. I want it to be romantic and carefree. I want to sit in a cottage in the middle of the mountains and look out the window until a strange bird flies by or snow begins to fall, unexpectedly. I want to have those moments where a poem or a story come to me when I am in search of everything else.
Of course, that’s unrealistic.
Writing is work. It’s agonizing over a line you hate but aren’t sure why you hate it. It’s rewriting a scene in a story from three different perspectives, none of them satisfactory. It’s fighting an internal battle with yourself about whose story you’re telling and why, in a lot of ways, it is somehow always your own.
When I was doing my MFA in Boston, my classmates often talked about their writing routines and the number of novels they’d written or the many stories they’d published. And I was surprised every time. How can someone so young write so much, I wondered. For me, it is not simply a matter of quantity. I am convinced that nothing I write is good enough, so I am slow to produce. Because of this, I am also burdened by the need to write only perfect stories and perfect poems. I am aware, of course, that an imperfect being cannot produce a perfect product. This does not stop my mind from telling me, incessantly, that I must be perfect, anyway.
But every now and then I come across writers who do not have these established routines, writers who seem to, like me, write whenever the muse strikes.
I love the sentiment that bell hooks describes in the beginning of the essay, Women Artists: The Creative Process:
“I am a girl who dreams of leisure, always have. Reverie has always been necessary to my existence. I have needed long hours where I am stretched out, wearing silks, satins, and cashmeres, just alone with myself, embraced by the beauty around me. When I have adorned myself just so, I am ready for the awesome task of just lingering…”
I find this notion so relatable because I believe the best writing comes when we are simply living. When I lived in Boston, it was easy to find poems everywhere. When I took the train or walked through the city or sat in coffee shops, everything was a potential story. I strongly believe that the environment you’re in can either make or break your life as a writer. Place is not just setting in our stories; it is also a character.
There are times, of course, when I can sit down and maintain a somewhat disciplined practice. I write for a couple of hours at a time even when I don’t want to. I am always writing something, whether it’s in my journal or taking notes on a lecture or jotting down something I heard on a podcast. I am just not always writing the things I want to write. But I am learning to stop feeling guilty about this. If bell hooks can linger, then I give myself permission to as well.
I don’t know if I will ever have a writing routine. My process is to wait. To linger. To talk long walks and marvel at the sky and sit in busy cafes. To wash the dishes. To read good books. To research facts about birds and clouds. My process is to live and trust that the writing will come. It always does.