Writing Habits

A while ago I did a blog on reading habits and I decided that doing one on writing habits might be fun. I have been writing for about a decade now, though I only started writing seriously a couple of month ago. Thus I am still trying out new ways to work. 

I try to write every day. I do not set myself goals for the days as in how many hours I will be writing or how many words I want to write. Some days when I am having a down day or when I am very busy, it is just very hard to write. Still I try to get some words on the page, even if the writing ends up to be very bad. Bad writing is better than no writing. I fail the write daily more often then I want to, especially now that I am studying for my resists it is very hard. When schools start again in autumn, I hope I will finally plan everything in on a weekly basis and commit myself to that planning. I am, however, notoriously bad in planning.

source: google images

I hate being disturbed while writing. It can kill my flow. Most of the time I do the disturbing myself. The internet and not picking the right writing music are things that easily distract me. I like to chat with my friends and I do not stop a conversation when I am writing. It is not rare that I spend most of the time chatting instead of writing. I actually should close down the internet when writing, but I often use google translate to check up words seeing English is not my first language. Also the internet is easy for research. Writing with the internet open, is a very bad habit of mine. I really should try to close the internet more often or just ignore the people who are trying to talk to me until I have finished a paragraph or a scene.

Without a doubt my worst habit is wanting to rewrite scenes all the time. I have a hard time controlling my inner critic. When I reread something I have written previously, I almost always want to write it all over again because I know I can do it better. I should, however, leave that for another draft or else I have the risk to end up in a circle of never-ending edits or making myself very annoyed. Yesterday I spent a lot of time on writing a significant conversation and when I reread it today in order to continue, I wanted to make a back-up of the whole thing and start all over again. I managed to restrain myself so far, but it makes me frustrated and loose my enthusiasm to continue. 

I tend to keep everything related to the story in my head. I have a fairly good memory and I know that I am not likely to forget good ideas. I know everything would be much more organised when I would write it down, especially since I am working with a co-writer. I love world building until I have to write everything down. Because I have absolutely no clue what the best way to organise everything, I cannot stand to write it down. It somehow always makes it look very messy and disorganised. A giant cork board would be handy, but I have no room near my computer to hang something like that. I have, however, decided to scan in all my notes instead of typing them. It saves me a lot more time. I am also considering on using cards to write world building things on them and file them in a particular way. The downside of that system that I might end up with tons and tons of cards because they are so small.

I could go on for a little while longer, but as this blog is getting quite long, these habits (looking back on it, I a doubting if habit is the right word, but for now I cannot think of anything else) are the first ones that sprang into my mind. I might do another blog on something similar in the future about how I write, but I'm very busy now and leaving on a holiday in two weeks, so I might take a while before I write another blog.

If you have tips how I can improve these 'habits' or sort my world building organising problem, feel free to share in the comments. I would also love to read about your habits!