[Guest Post] T.L. Simpson’s Key to Writing Success: Establishing a Routine and Sticking to It

[Guest Post] T.L. Simpson’s Key to Writing Success: Establishing a Routine and Sticking to It

I am a newspaper editor and journalist by trade, stick to a weightlifting routine and have four kids. You might be wondering amid all that, where does one squeeze in the time to write two books in two years?

Well, it's worse than that.

Because I've written 14 books (or is it 15 now?) since 2017 — although most of them will likely stay safely hidden from the world in the THIS IS GARBAGE trunk. Still, you can’t fault my productivity!

The secret is establishing a routine and sticking to it.

I know it's not glamorous. I know it’s not romantic. But the real key to writing is as simple as putting your butt in the chair each day and getting the work done. Writing isn’t waxing poetic about writing. It’s not browsing social media. It’s not talking to other writers about your ideas. Writing is (you guessed it) writing.

Ultimately, you have to find the routine and system that works for you. There is no one right answer. Here’s what works for me: 

I used to tell myself I’d write before I went to bed each day. I’d get all my work out of the way, then I’d fire up the computer and write until late into the night. One problem: by then, my brain was mush. And it was really easy to find excuses to do something more relaxing. I decided I was going to give the best, most energetic and freshest part of my day to myself. No more waiting until the end of the day to do some low energy writing.

No, I was gonna get it while the gettin' was good.

And for me, that ended up being first thing in the morning.

Usually, I'll wake up, take the kids off to school, have my breakfast (oatmeal with fruit and coffee, black) and talk with my wife for possibly the only childfree moment of our day.

Next comes the golden hour: That's when I dive into whatever project I am working on. The goal is 500-1000 words. Or, if I am in the planning stage, I don't worry about word count. Instead, I just spend a full hour on the thing. Later, if I have time, I'll return to it and work some more. 

That feels like a bonus.

If I'm in the revision process, I use the same method.

Writing is a lot like fitness, it might surprise you to hear. If you ever decide to get in shape, you don’t turn up at the gym, pour out two years of missed workouts into a couple sessions and somehow end up in shape. No. You do a little bit every single day, and slowly, almost magically, your body starts to change. It’s the same with writing. You don’t need marathon sessions. All you have to do is show up and chip away at the thing a little bit at a time.

I've never quite understood writers who say things like "writing is painful" or "I love having accomplished the act of writing but I hate the writing itself."

It's like...if you don't love it...why do it?

That's not to say writing isn't hard. There are plenty of bang-head-on-desk moments, but for the most part, for myself, there are few greater joys than finding a good flow state on a project and spending a morning clattering away on a keyboard.

But! There are worse attitudes a writer might have.

Like the I want to write but I never do attitude.

If you find yourself with this attitude, you need to have an honest and frank conversation with yourself. I never have to force myself to play an hour or two of video games. So if I love writing so much, why should it be so difficult to accomplish the thing?

It shouldn't.

And anytime I had any kind of thought to the contrary, I made sure to stomp it out with my boot. Do you love writing? Or do you love the idea of being a writer? Believe something long enough, and it becomes true.

Anyway…

After that it's time to devote some hours to my newspaper editor duties, which includes gathering news, writing articles, planning the next day's paper and assigning stories to reporters. Instead of lunch, I usually eat at my desk (typically just a jumbo sized protein bar) and take my hour break at the gym, where I lift weights. My gym time (at least at first) had less to do with building muscle and more to do with having more energy. Someone once told me that a person has just enough time to be a great father and one other activity. So, for example, you could be a great father and a great writer but not a great father, great writer and a great cartographer.

There are only so many minutes in the day. And you gotta divvy them up correctly. And I was not going to look back at my kids after chasing this writer dream and realize I’d been so singleminded in my efforts to make this happen, I’d missed all the good stuff.

When I first became a reporter in 2012, I worked nights. 

I missed far too much time with my kids when they were small.

I don’t exactly regret it. 

But I don’t love it.

I started to realize I was running out of steam pretty early in the day. I was no good after lunch. Which meant no bonus late-night writing sessions. But more importantly, I didn't have the juice to play catch in the yard with my boys or watch horror movies with my daughter.

So I started hitting the gym. An hour per day to buy back some time later. Now it's a pretty irreplaceable part of my routine. I'd go so far as to call it part of my writing process. The gym is where I listen to audiobooks. It’s where I brainstorm new ideas. It’s where I look at myself in the mirror and go damn man, thems your arms? (Before you call me vain, understand I lost 90 pounds over the last year.)

It's my moment of zen.

After that, it's back to the newspaper grind until deadline. Then I'm off to spend time with family or cover an event or, if I've had a particularly productive day, spend a little while enjoying one of those wonderful, time-wasting video games.

T. L. Simpson is an award-winning journalist and editor of the Courier, a newspaper in his hometown of Russellville, Arkansas. Simpson spent nearly ten years covering high school and collegiate sports before taking over as editor. During that time, he was also the paper’s primary crime reporter. In a lot of ways, Strong Like You is the result of his experiences with covering both. 

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