How I get back on the writing wagon when all my good habits are broken

Five strategies for starting again, amid the chaos

I’ve been more physically ill in the past 10 weeks than I have been in my entire life. Don’t worry, I don’t have cancer. Well, not exactly. I don’t have cancer, unless you think a fetus is a tumor.

Surprise! I’m pregnant. Yes, yes, very happy news. It’s wonderful and all that. But also, I’ve endured more than two months of vomiting my guts out and letting a cluster of cells in my uterus suck the marrow out of my bones. My lovely little parasite.

Well the nausea has finally abated but my writing and productivity habits are in shambles. Rather than my beautiful, peaceful morning routine that worked for the previous eight months, I’ve spent the last three months in bed surrounded by Zofran, vomit bags, crackers, and any book or tv show that could distract me from the painful burning in my esophagus caused by stomach acid. (Too graphic? Sorry, perpetuating humanity aint pretty folks.)

But back to the whole point of this post. How do I pick myself up from my current messy state of affairs and become the productive writing machine I was back in December?

I’ve been in this habits-in-shambles place before and there are a few strategies that work to get my days structured and back on track. It has taken me several years and lots of angst to find these methods so I hope they will serve you well:

1. Drugs (legal ones).

I have ADHD. The surest way to get me back into a routine would be to take my ADHD meds. Unfortunately, stimulant medications are highly discouraged while pregnant. So that won’t work for me for at least six more months. Damn, pregnancy is truly the mind killer. (Not fear, as Paul Atreides would say).

If drugs aren’t an option for you either, keep reading.

2. Friends.

The only reason this post is written and sitting in front of you right now is because I have a standing co-working session with the ever-wise and encouraging

Kat Nieh

every Tuesday morning. We meet for a few hours over zoom or at a coffee shop and work together.

Honestly, if I didn’t have to plant my butt in a computer chair so I could keep my promise to Kat and show up for our session, I’d still be in bed reading the third book in Pierce Brown’s Red Rising series. The inertia that comes from not having a consistent morning routine is really really really hard to break.

The most important tool after drugs has been having colleagues and friends keep me accountable to my goals. There is so much power in having community. If you don’t have one, you better get one, friends.

3. A room of one’s own.

Ok you don’t need a whole room. But something that has helped me come back to my writing desk is the feeling that the desk belongs to me and I belong to the desk. Here’s what my writing space looks like:

When I’ve been in a fugue-state, like in the nausea induced delirium of the last few months, my desk will often be littered with crap like bottles of Tylenol, my toddler’s pajamas, random mail, and candy wrappers.

Maybe it’s an ADHD thing, or just a typical brain thing, but an organized space helps me have an organized mind. Organized doesn’t have to mean sterile. Note all the random tchotchkes and colorful objects on my desk that my stimulant-craving mind enjoys.

But there is a semblance of order to all the madness, and that makes all the difference. Often when I find that I can’t possibly bring myself to sit down and write, it’s a really bad feeling because it’s like I don’t have control over my own brain, my own body.

Tidying makes me feel like I can reclaim control again. It puts me back in my body. And the simple act of moving (to clear the space, take out the trash, put away cloths) makes me feel like I am behind the wheel again. My mind is at mission control, pushing buttons, directing limbs. And that is a start.

4. Journal.

Sometimes the brain is too clogged to write beautiful prose and coherent scenes. There’s too much trash gumming up the hallways.

Getting into a creative writing flow state requires immense concentration. Getting into that state is even harder when the mind is occupied by other pressing feelings.

The last three months of my life have been very emotional. Imagine all the anguish of not being able to properly care for my toddler, or take care of my own physical body, let alone my mental state. Of watching my husband carry the entire burden of the household, on top of his very demanding job. Of eating poorly, sleeping poorly, and feeling guilty all the time for turning into a slug in the hopes of growing a whole set of kidneys and maybe some eyelashes for another human being.

It’s hard to cast aside those feelings and all the attendant thoughts when I’m trying to write a Substack post, or God forbid, a scene from my novel.

The answer, really, is to stop trying. I need to write a bunch of garbage in my journal about how I’m feeling and process all the difficult stuff from the last several months. All that detritus is floating around in my psyche, and it’s hard to make space for creativity when other feelings and thoughts are taking up so much space.

So, I journal. Whenever I feel light enough to write creatively, I do.

5. Do the pressing life admin.

Sometimes all the other demands in life press in and keep my mind from the clarity and focus needed to write. The bills due, the full inbox, the appointments that need making all ping my consciousness, saying “deal with me! deal with me! deal with me!” until writing feels impossible. That’s true of any time in life—even when I have my habits and daily structure in order.

Most of the time I don’t give into the impulse to work on life admin because 1) I hate doing them, and 2) I know if I give in, my brain will be too fried afterwards to get any writing done.

But every once in a while, I’ll have the wisdom to just capitulate to those demands because they’re too distracting to do anything else. And in some instances, that turns out to be the right move.

If I’m able to get some online bills paid and a couple emails sent within an hour or less, then the dopamine hit I get from accomplishing something important (some people call it “eating the frog”) gives me the helpful brain juice I need to do the work that is much harder and more taxing—creative writing.

---

That’s it folks. That’s all I’ve got. There’s no magic bullet, really. None of the above works in totality, or all the time. (What do I look like? A wizard? I’m not peddling snake oil here). But they do help a lot.

It’s what I’m doing to pick myself up. One word at a time.

Cheers,

Noor

PS: How do you all get writing again when your world has been turned upside down? Asking for a friend.

How I Get Myself to Sit Down and Write