This week: Routine Questions Edited by: Kit  
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Do you have a writing routine? What works for you?
Many writers have a routine of some sort - and so do our characters.
This week's Drama Newsletter is, indeed, all about routines and habits.
Kit |
Are you a creature of routine, or do you take life as it comes? Many people have some kind of structure to their day; have their routines, their habits. I am one of them. Each morning, after I wake up, I go about things in a certain way. After that I am more casual in my approach, until just before bedtime – I have to do my rounds around the house to make sure that everything is shut, and locked, and switched off before I can rest.
My cats, too, are creatures of routine. They are set in their ways and if life (or, more exactly, one of their people) tries to deviate from these there will be complaints. This is especially the case when treat time is missed by even a minute – they will remind us in loud vocal tones. There must be Time, followed by The Closing of the Laptop, followed by The Opening of the Treat Bags. So it is written, apparently.
There are people who are extremely set in their routines, even more so than my cats. My grandmother and my uncle had set times for everything. Meal times, coffee times, television schedules, even bathroom times in case of my uncle. There was zero flexibility in these. Back in the days when you couldn’t just pause a television show, if one of their favourite TV series overran by a few minutes and it was, say, coffee time, my gran would not watch the end of it. Not even if it was super tense. No. It was coffee time. She always made a cup of coffee at that time and, therefore, a cup of coffee must be made, no matter what.
On the opposite end of the spectrum there are people who have seemingly no routine at all. Random bedtimes, random dinner times, random everything – or that’s what it looks like. Most people do have certain ways in which they do things; few people go about life in a completely random manner.
That goes for our characters, too. Whilst it is rare for people to be as set in their ways as my grandmother and my uncle, it is common to like things exactly as they are. A lot of the time it is because it makes sense to do things a certain way. For example, during the morning there are certain things that must be done before one leaves the house, and once it is worked out which way is most convenient, why deviate from that? Similarly, doing the rounds at night to check that everything is safe and secure makes sense, at least to me, and by going around the house in a tried-and-trusted pattern I can make sure that I haven’t missed anything – and that I won’t be trying to sleep later, only for my brain to suddenly worry about the kitchen taps.
A character trying to survive in the wilderness will tend to their fire, secure fresh water, and likely set traps and later check those traps at certain times, moving in harmony with the rhythm of nature and wildlife. Likewise, a farmer must feed the chickens, milk the cows, and move their sheep from field to field throughout the year to prevent overgrazing. A shopkeeper must ready the stock, then open the store, and at the end of the day clean, check the tills, and close. Other people depend on us following this structure, this way that life is organised – most shops are open at set times and shops that aren’t – little bookshops keeping to their own hours, say – will have potential customers not in the know responding to this deviation from the norm in confusion.
It is nice when life is predictable. It is comforting. It is so much easier when everything functions in the manner in which it ought to function. Most people are resistant to change. Even when it is a change for the better, it takes some adjusting to. Without structure, without routine, without us having our little habits, everything becomes unpredictable, chaotic, and I’m with my cats on this – let’s not live like that.
There are many writers who have their routines as well. They may only use pen and paper, or a certain device. They may have a set time when they write each day, and only write for a certain amount of hours, or until they have written a certain amount of pages. They may need their writing environment to be just so in order to be able to write. Some writers write to music; others require absolute silence. I personally prefer to write my poetry on paper, but my stories and newsletters get written on my laptop. I am not entirely certain why I do things that way, though there tends to be a lot of crossing out and re-writing/rephrasing when I write a poem and there may be arrows going in different directions indicating a different order of words and lines. Once I am reasonably satisfied, that is when I tend to type out the poem and fine-tune it. It works for me, so I am sticking with it. I guess it’d get too messy to do that with longer pieces, but there are others who do swear by the pen-and-paper method regardless of the length of the piece, and whatever helps the creative process is worth taking the time for.
What is your writing routine? Do you have one? Or do you go with whatever works for you in the moment?
Wishing you a week filled with inspiration,
Kit
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The Drama Newsletter Team
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Drama: March 04, 2026 Issue [#13621]
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