“New goals don’t deliver new results. New lifestyles do.
And a lifestyle is a process, not an outcome.
For this reason, your energy should go into building better habits, not chasing better results.”
— James Clear
Something to think about today, especially if you’re scrambling to hit a deadline (no judgment, I see you). Writers love goals.
- 10,000 words a week.
- Six books a year.
- Hit the next income tier.
- Launch to a bigger list.
Goals are shiny. Goals feel productive. Goals look impressive in a planner. But goals don’t write books. Habits do.
The producing writer—by which I mean the writer who actually produces words consistently—lives a boring life. There, I said it.
Writing takes time. Time requires routine. Routine means today looks suspiciously like yesterday. You get up. You sit down. You write. You do it again tomorrow. There is very little cinematic montage involved.
You can’t be a producing author if you’re so busy you can only figure out what city you’re in by looking at your calendar. Constant novelty might be exciting, but it’s hostile to word count.
I talk to my mum every day. Quite often, one or both of us says, “I have nothing to report today.” She calls that boring and laughs about how dull our lives are.
Exactly.
That “nothing to report” life? That’s the life that services creativity.
It’s the life where:
- Your brain isn’t constantly reorienting itself.
- Your energy isn’t burned up by chaos.
- Your writing session has a predictable place to live.
The indie writer who produces consistently isn’t chasing outcomes. They’re protecting processes. They’re not obsessing over results. They’re building a lifestyle that makes results inevitable.
And a lifestyle is just habits stacked quietly on top of each other until one day you look up and realize you’ve written another book.
If you want more words, don’t ask, “How do I hit a bigger goal?” Ask: What would my daily life have to look like for writing to be normal?
Build that.
Let the rest be boring.
And then let the books pile up.
Now on pre-order: The Anti-Ensh*ttification Field Manual for Indie Authors: Because the platforms will decay…but your career doesn’t have to go down with them.
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I used to be somewhat prolific, about 30 years ago. I could bang out a 50,000-word story in about 3 days. I did little else but type, drink coffee, eat sparingly, and sleep even less, but the story would not let me rest until I finished it. That’s because I had a day job during the week, and I knew I’d have to stop writing to go to work on Monday. But it worked.
These days, the dynamic is a bit different. I have to work more at outlining and planning. The stories no longer spring from my mind full-panoplied, like Pallas Athena from the brow of Zeus. They take time and thought. Then there’s the press of other hobbies and interests that crowd their way in. I’ve got a baker’s dozen different hobbies, some of which take some significant time. Some take only a half hour a day, including watching a lesson on YouTube. (I’m learning electric guitar, along with piano, saxophone, recorder, and flute. I bought a “microChord”, a sort of electronic autoharp, based on the Suzuki Omnichord. But Omnichords cost like crazy, so I did the next best thing: I bought an autoharp. And a set of strings. My grade school has a music teacher who brought hers to school and played that instead of rolling a piano around.)
I’ve decided I’m not ADHD. Instead, I’ve got a different way of processing information entirely. I’m what’s called a “pattern weaver” personality. I can’t specialize. Instead of progressing vertically to an expert status, I progress laterally, getting conversant with a whole range of similar topics, then syncretically connecting them all together. When I saw a video on the subject, I nearly cried, because it’s how I’ve functioned since I was a child. I don’t lack focus, I’ve got plenty of that. But I’ll see a thread going off on a tangent, and I’ll follow it until I’m satisfied, then I’ll backtrack. Or I’ll cycle around and pick something back up for a while. Right now, the next section of my most recent story is “percolating” >the back of my mind, weaving together stands from all over to add to the story. When it gets developed enough, I’ll write it.
Here’s the video I saw : https://youtu.be/M_Ym61SEM0o?si=Bag3F3h_e6G5yMBx
Or made quite an impression on me. I always felt guilt and shame that I couldn’t just work on one thing and master it. I had to get “good enough” with a wide range of subjects. It’s just how I’m wired. But I’ve heard what ADHD feels like, and that’s not how it feels.
I’ll get where I want to go, but I’m more like a tourist than a commuter.
There are as many ways to get stories written as there are writers.
Yours is just one — a very interesting one, too!
Tracy