My ridiculous writing routine
Last week I returned to creative writing after a while. Here’s my routine:
Turn off your phone. Then run. Then walk. Then meditate outdoors. Then walk some more. Then watch the turtles and fish from over the bridge. Try to forget all about yourself. Meditate while walking back home.
Return and take a cold shower. Finally, write. First write in a notebook and then on your laptop. Return to the notebook if words don’t arrive. After forty minutes, stop.
Two hours of preparation for forty minutes of writing. I know that’s not sane. But it’s the only way I could get any creative writing done. These two pieces came out of it.
Doesn’t even compare to how I used to write
I wrote the most I ever have on a month-long writing intensive in France. Thirteen student writers and two instructors in a village in France without any internet, submitting one 600-word creative piece every weekday and a 1500-word article every weekend, while travelling to nearby towns, reading, and attending seminars on writing.
I had crippling writer’s block at that point—I hadn’t written in a year. Now, I was forced to produce polished pieces in two hours. This is how I would get it done.
Blast music in your ears, write in obscure hard-to-read fonts, and then physically squint so you cannot read any of what you are writing.
I got 75% of my writing done squinting. They’ve been some of my better pieces.
Creativity is about silencing self-criticism
What am I on about?
I’ve discovered—subconsciously, through my ridiculous routines—that the biggest obstacle to creativity is my own judgment. My routines, however ridiculous, work for me because they shut my judgmental brain off. Learned mindlessness.
Now we tend to think that creativity requires more. More ideas. More time. More skills. But it’s exactly the opposite.
It’s not the lack of ideas that is the obstacle to creativity. It’s the inability to sit down with any one idea long enough for it to become something. It’s the inability to tolerate yourself long enough to figure out that you, in fact, have something visionary to give.
You don’t need to know more.
You don’t need to think more.
You don’t need to do more.
You need to sit down with your canvas and do less. Think less. Know less.
Why We Struggle to Create
I’ll say this about writers but it applies to all sorts of creators.
Perhaps you are struggling to write because somewhere along the way you stopped being content with writing one sentence, aligning one phrase and conveying one concept. At some point you decided you were writing a Booker prize winning short-story, or your Magnum Opus, or the memoir of your childhood.
It is never the right time to write a Booker prize-winner, no coffee is just strong enough for that magnum opus, and no afternoon is long enough to bring to words the first loss in your life. So, you never start.
We enter the table with such enormous expectations that our work has no chance to swim. We shove our half-baked ideas under the microscope when they are not ready yet. That is why we need to see less when creating—squinting can be the best way to have vision.
No one ever wrote a magnum opus, a memoir or even a short story. They wrote words and ideas and phrases. And if they were lucky and consistent, those words defined genres and became stories worth reading.
Now it’s your turn to share those simplest of things: your ideas. But how are you going to give yourself the chance if you are so critical of your ideas, and so conscious of what they need to become?
Why you must learn to turn Criticism off
The best projects–the one’s we care about–need us to shut down our criticism. Because no external factors are going to push us in that direction.
Creating when you’re inspired is easy.
Creating when there’s a deadline is easy.
But some of your best ideas aren’t due and will not wait until you’re at the top of a mountain at sunset with a notebook and a rosé. They’ll come to you at the bus stop and before you sleep, in the toilet, at dinner and at work.
If you’re only writing when you’re inspired or when its due, then you’re choosing to sleep on your best ideas. You’re depriving the world of what you owe it—your unique vision.
Criticism comes in many forms
“This sounds immature or boring or is hideous in some other way.”
“Who will want to read this?”
“This idea is too good—its perfect. That’s why I can’t execute it now. I need more time, better tools, and better skills.”
“Someone is going to disagree with what I’m saying.”
“Who am I to be making this piece?”
“Is this really worth the time and effort?”
These criticisms are not always unwarranted, but the very beginning of the process is not the right time for them to be raised.
What do you do now?
If you’re the kind of person this is for, then you need to shut down your judgement when you create. Only when you can do that can you create the projects that you care about.
How?
Criticism is about ego, desire and fear. Creativity is about expression and being.
Sneak in creativity when ego is sleeping—when you’re drunk or tired or have just woken up. Meditate. Run. Cry. Distance yourself from your self—your ambitions, your opinions, your insecurities. Any way you know how.
When you start finding what works, put it together as your own pre–process for creativity. Build your runway to ego-loss. Return to this process when you’re stuck.
And finally, don’t let it become work—losing your judgement, even for a moment, is liberating. So, soak it in. Rejoice in that blessed mindlessness.
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