As a business-owner and entrepreneur, routine and planning is readily accepted. Actually, it’s celebrated. As a creative writer and artist, routine is vehemently rejected. Being “creative” or being an “artist” is synonymous with a character who is chaotic, crazy, unstable or depressed (literally all of these things have been said to me). This is probably because when being an Artist became a “thing,” the icons were also part of the counter-culture movement.
They have nothing to do with routine, so surely, to be like them, I should also reject everything that is stable, right?
Wrong.
Actually, they did have a routine. Oddly, routine is really common among many great artists, each one crafting their own version of their creative day-to-day.
Lately, I’ve been faltering in my creative process and I know that in order to be producing GOOD work, I must be consistent in actually finishing stuff, and there’s only one way to do that. You guessed it: ROUTINE.
Check out my new plan! With this plan, I will be finished with the first draft of my feature in the 45 days and I will have read an average of 2-3 books. I’ll keep updating this blog with how the routine is going but keep this in mind: goals are met one day at a time, not in big sweeping chunks.
Now, make your own version of this…
7:00am
wake up, play with Squishy the cat, feed her, make coffee
7:30am
morning pages for 10 minutes. More about that write here.
7:45am
work really hard on NOT checking social media on my phone. Actually, turn off notifications, throw the phone off the balcony, whatever.
8:00am
write 2 pages of screenplay as fast as I can
8:30am
exercise (4x per week) – I get more and more ideas during this time, but also, I use exercise time to read or watch an interesting show because seriously, I can’t get through it any other way. Otherwise, I take a long walk and the ideas just come.
9:30am
get ready to go to the best job in the world at FADE IN:
10:30am
walk to work (don’t judge me, it takes me forever to get ready)
11:00am
work begins, writing first (ie. this blog, newsletters, web-series), or meetings, and then logistics begin and seem to never end.
bedtime:
10 minutes of reading INSTEAD of checking my phone. Did I throw that thing out the window yet?
Have you met FADE IN:?
We would love to hear from you about your creative process!
Write here: info@fadeinbeirut.com