by Jenn Gott

I didn’t publish any books in 2020.

There are a lot of reasons for this, not the least of which is that it was 2020. And while I already had the incredible privilege of working from home, the stress and changes the pandemic threw at me were still more than enough to disrupt my efforts at maintaining any semblance of normal.

So for most of the year, I had no writing habit to speak of. I’d returned to the process of my early twenties, where I’d write a scrap here or there, forever longing for a routine and never quite managing to find one.

For someone who’s written consistently enough to publish a book every year since 2014, it was causing me no small amount of anxiety. And while I took a very kind approach to myself — I was not about to let capitalism make me feel guilty for doing what I had to during a pandemic to stay mentally healthy — it still gnawed at me.

Halfway through December, however, I realized that not writing had started to become more draining than helpful. The trouble was: how to build back a habit that had languished for what felt like a thousand years?

Luckily, in my pre-2020 writing years, I’d already developed what I call “the 10-minute trick” to get myself writing on low-motivation days. But could that work consistently in 2020 — and work well enough to get myself back into a steady routine?

The rules of the 10-minute rule

At its core, the 10-minute trick is pretty much what it says on the tin: I open my story, I set my timer for ten minutes, I get to work.

But here’s the thing: if that was my only rule, I knew I’d fail and fail early, if for no other reason than I was used to working in sessions a lot longer than ten minutes. So as I was deciding how to apply this trick on a daily basis, I set myself very specific parameters:

●       Ten minutes is a starting point, not an end. If the timer rings and I’m in my groove, I shut it off and just keep working.

●      BUT there’s no obligation to do so. If I’m having a day where the words just aren’t flowing, or I’m super-stressed about the rest of my life, or I’m just plain exhausted, ten minutes is enough.

●      I don’t necessarily have to write, but I can’t do anything that doesn’t relate to my story. So I can spend those ten minutes making notes or outlining, I can re-read earlier chapters, I can edit earlier chapters, or I can just sit there with a blank page and daydream about an upcoming scene. Anything that keeps my mind in the world of my story counts, no matter how “productive” it looks. (And if that fails? A writing exercise is the only acceptable substitute.)

●      I find a pocket of time in my schedule where I can do this routine every damned day. If I want to get it done earlier than scheduled, okay, great. But if that scheduled time slot comes up and I haven’t done my ten minutes yet? I have to sit down and do it, whether I feel like it or not.

Pretty simple, right? That’s the whole point. Anything more complicated, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stick with it.

And there’s promising signs: I started using this system the day after I laid out my rules. And except for a brief break over Christmas, I’ve kept using it every day since.

This is what I’ve learned.

Benefit 1: It makes it easier to start

Why ten minutes? The short answer is, it’s a small enough chunk that I can always convince myself to do it.

The longer answer is that it helps me start. I’ve noticed that the biggest problem I have on low-motivation days is deciding that yes, I really do want to sit down and work on my stories. Once I actually show up at my desk, I’m very likely to stay there. The struggle is getting myself to commit in the first place.

This is really the key to the whole process. “Tough love” never works on me, so I can’t just drill sergeant myself and say that I Will Show Up Every Day Whether I Want To Or Not.

This is especially true if I set a large goal for myself. Our productivity-obsessed culture makes it really easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the further “behind” you are, the bigger your daily goal should be to catch up. Especially when you’re self-publishing on Amazon, there’s an incredible amount of pressure to go-go-go, where any delay feels like it will be the death of your career.

But this can also be a trap: if I feel like there’s a good chance I won’t reach my large goal, I’m much more likely to throw my hands up and not even try.

Is this a healthy reaction to have? Nope. But fear and self-doubt are no small feats to overcome, and I’ve found that — for me, at least — it’s much easier to work with my limitations than constantly fighting against them. Since I know a big goal will backfire when I’m feeling overwhelmed, I turn to small goals instead.

Benefit 2: It builds momentum

I’ve found that writing is a lot like physics: a writer in motion tends to stay in motion, while a writer at rest tends to stay at rest.

At least, I do.

The mental resistance I feel is a lot lower the longer I sustain a writing habit. I’m not the kind of writer who refuses to take a single day off ever, but when I’m in a good routine, I do try to keep those breaks as short as possible: a day here, two days there. It’s really important for me to stay consistent until I build up enough momentum that I won’t lose speed through the breaks — especially if I have been out of the writing game for a while.

Listen, the bottom line is that it’s always easier to not write than to write. And there’s always an excuse you can find, there’s always a reason you can convince yourself why it’s okay, really, to take one more day off. What’s the harm, when you’re already on a break? One day won’t make a difference, right?

The trouble is that one day always becomes two, and two days always become three. Habits get formed. Mental walls go up. At the end of the day, the only way to stay in the routine is to actually stick to the routine, however small it may be.

Benefit 3: It keeps the story alive in my head

Now, when you were reading my rules, you may have noticed that I allow myself to count “daydreaming about my story” as a win — and I wouldn’t blame you if you rolled your eyes a little at that one. After all, “daydreaming” isn’t going to get a story written, right?

And by itself, no, it’s not. But when I’ve been away from my story for a while, I start to forget things. Sometimes it’s as small as a character detail, or sometimes it’s the key to untangling the plot I’d been struggling with. I take extensive notes, but it always takes time to re-read what I’ve got and boot it all back up into my head — time that could otherwise be spent, you know, writing the story.

More importantly, keeping the story alive in my head keeps me excited to sit down and work on it. The longer I go without writing, the more distant I feel from my own work. The characters stop talking to me, I stop playing out scenes while I’m going to sleep or taking a shower… bit by bit, the mental space that normally gets filled with my novels is overtaken by other things: work and obligations and politics and the plots of my current binge-show.

But when I consciously check in with my story every day — even if that’s all I do — that space stays devoted to my book. And much like the previous two benefits, on the days when I do have more energy and motivation, it allows me to jump back in and be productive without all that wasted time just getting started.

And really, that’s the key to the whole thing: removing all the blocks that have piled up around me, and warming up the muscles that have languished during the pandemic. Slowly but surely, those 10 minute bursts start stretching out into longer and longer sprints, until finally, without even realizing it, I’m writing faster and falling back into the routine I’ve been longing for.

So in the end, is there even really a “trick” to this? After all, “write every day!” is a staple of writing advice, isn’t it?

Yes. But I think the key lies in how you get there. If 2020 showed us anything, it’s that mental health is just as important as physical health, and it doesn’t take much to send most of us reeling.

The good news is that it doesn’t necessarily take much to get back to a good space, either. Just a little bit of time, patience, and understanding can go a long way — even if it’s only for ten minutes at a time.

Jenn Gott is an indie author, as well as a writer for Reedsy, where she posts about books, craft, and publishing. So basically, she’s writing all the time. On her few breaks, you can find her snuggling with her cat, watching superhero movies, or designing houses in The Sims.