Writing a book is a superposition of being both the easiest thing in the world and the hardest damn thing in the universe at the same time. When the words start to flow it is like dreaming with waking eyes, seeing worlds unfurl from your fingertips and bringing new life into being. Getting the words to flow is the hard part.
You need to find a workflow that works for you. Different people respond to different ways of working. Some people like hustle, bustle and noise around them, others require utmost silence. What kind of writer you are will be up to you to discover, but I will tell you what works for me. It might work for you as well. There’s only one way to find out.
Be diligent
However often you write you must be diligent. Create a schedule and stick to it. Some people like to write a page every day, other people like to spend a day in the library once a week, but whatever you choose, you must stick to it. Treat your writing as the priority it is. If someone calls to chat, you say “can I call you back in an hour? I need to finish this.” Ignore texts, ignore game invites; you set this time aside to write and you deserve to use it for writing. If your long lost brother finally returns from his mysterious disappearance in New Guinea you may deviate from your plans, but make sure he knows you are making a sacrifice for him.
I like to spend a large chunk of the day writing. I start about eight-thirty to nine o’clock, work through until twelve-thirty to one o’clock, then have some lunch, then get back to work until around three. The exact timings vary depending on where I have comfortably finished. I do not enjoy breaking flow. I find that if I try to work after 3pm my productivity decreases, so that is usually when I stop.
Create a separate workspace
Have somewhere you go that is just for writing. This could be a coffee shop, a library, the garden shed, a friend’s house, elsewhere in your own house, or even just the other end of the desk, but have a space which is a work space. It is not where you browse the internet, it is not where you game, it is not where you draw, or paint, or watch TV, it is a place where the only thing you do is write. If you are there you are writing, if you are writing you go there.
My favourite place to write was a particular corner of a particular coffee shop near where I lived. Schedules no longer make it a practical place to work, but it will forever hold a place in my heart. I work in the local library, and occasionally from home, but when working from home I try to go elsewhere in the house.
Separate research, writing, and editing into different tasks and schedule accordingly
One of the biggest impedances to word flow is undoubtedly the temptation to engage in research or editing while you should be writing. At the time it seems like something quick and easy to google and check, but before you know it you’re tabbing over every few moments, and your output starts to go down. You fall out of ‘the zone’ and it becomes harder to sustain. Before you know it you’re sixteen tabs deep in Wikipedia and trying to track down a copy of a bootleg translation of a book that hasn’t been printed in English just so you can get the cuisine of 1920s Turkey as accurate as possible, and your day is wasted. Your writing time has disappeared. You scheduled that time, you moved your appointments around for it, you delayed phone calls and brought forward lunch to make that time, and now it’s all gone. That research might be useful to the final product, or it may not, but it wasn’t an efficient use of time.
Likewise it is very easy to stop after a page, go back, and re-read things. Then you want to fiddle with it, reword this, add in this line, and again, before you know it you’ve spent 3 hours working on a single page and made very little forward progress.
So, whenever you get tempted to do some research or do some editing, stop! Make a note of it and then come back later. Later might be tomorrow, it might be in a week, but you won’t forget because you made a note. Research can be done instead of browsing social media or catching up on Netflix, and easily slides into other times of your routine. Editing can be made as its own separate task after you have finished writing the first draft of your book, and arranged the same way as editing.
I fail at this frequently.
Remove yourself from distractions
Set your phone to silent. Turn off the wifi if you can. Close down your browser. Surround yourself with sounds you enjoy (or silence!). Open up your word processor of choice and get to writing. There is nothing so terrible as getting pulled away midflow because someone sent you a message, or you got an email, or you were unable to stop yourself compulsively alt-tabbing to twitter and getting enthralled by the latest teacup-based maelstrom. You need to keep yourself locked into your word processor. Some people even like to use minimalist word processors that resemble old typewriters for this purpose, with nothing but an empty page to fill, both filling the screen and devoid of distracting editing tools.
Personally I use plain old Microsoft Word with some music on in the background. What kind of music rarely matters. Its purpose is to take up the excess brain space unused by the act of writing so that whenever I get a momentary hang, trying to think of a word or work through a tough scene, I don’t get tempted to tab over to social media for some stimulation.
Achieve these four tasks and you will soon find yourself in ‘the zone’ and with the words flowing. I personally write one to two thousand words per hour with this in place, and have written an 80,000 word book in as little as one month.