I'm often asked what my writing routine is, where I write (mostly in my kitchen) and for how many hours a day. Good question, but it turns out I'm not that disciplined. In fact I don't have a routine at all. Rather, I have a writing method with random hours, but a consistent approach.
At first I tried - I read 'The 90- day Novel': pile it on, it said, write something every day for 90 days. And don't go back and edit as you go along. Save the revisions for later. Get the words down first.
The trouble is, this left me with a problem when the first draft was finished, because it was now time for the editing proper - the editing I'd skipped and the research I'd pushed to one side, to return to later.
I'm still hard put to describe how difficult I found this, how I had to muster every ounce of resolve to return to the same pages and the same chapters again and again, often long after I'd writtten them. Like trying to make a fresh cup of tea with a twice-used teabag.
With the book I'm currently working on I've adopted an approach that suits me better - one that seems to answer to my natural way of working rather than requiring me to shoehorn myself into another's template.
Each morning I sit down and review what I've put down the previous day, ironing out the infelicities before starting writing the next page, and the next and the next. Editing on the go means I already know the completed version is that much closer as a result.
Which all goes to show that a disciplined, prescriptive approach like the 90-day novel guidance may be fine for many writers, and is undoubtedly an effective way of avoiding writer's block. But it doesn't work for everyone. Right now I'm doing what works best for me.
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