18 Comments

I like to blow off important things to write… gives writing its stubborn and forbidden essence

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stubborn and forbidden is so real ahahah yesss

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May 25Liked by sonja ringo

Love this!

I wish I had a dramatic, cinematic writing routine but it’s more just a random time during the day, me running around trying to find one of the twenty thousand pens I own haha

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ahahah the imagery of this is so visceral, i can def picture the frantic pen-hunting scene! been there too many times

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May 26Liked by sonja ringo

😅😅😅

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When I’m working on a book (which I am right now!), I usually wake up, feed my dog, make coffee and go straight to my desk and work until like 10 am or 11 am. It’s pretty unsexy. I kind of remind myself of that writer guy who is Mia Thermapolis’s neighbor in The Princess Diaries 🥲

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First of all, that's super exciting about your book!! What kind of book is it? I love your dedication to the morning routine. I find if I wait until later in the day I'll sometimes skip writing entirely.. I become a blob around 3pm.. and Mia's neighbour was LEGIT ahahaha memory unlocked

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I definitely hacked the morning routine when my pug got diabetes, so now I have to get up at 6 every morning to get him his insulin. pain!!! but he keeps me on my routine! and the book I’m writing is a history of girls’ bedroom culture…it’s been a long time in the making!!

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Oh my gosh ur poor pup :( Him keeping you on your routine is a beautiful silver lining though <3 I’m excited to check out your book once it’s ready! I have so many fond nostalgic memories re: my girl bedroom hehehe

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“There is such poetry in the discipline.”

I tend to be most productive when life expects me to do something else - like a work deadline. You see my procrastination is poetry

Lol

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OH THIS IS SO REAL lmao!! I've been laid off from work for a while and some of my best recent poems came from avoiding job hunting & writing instead hahaha

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May 8Liked by sonja ringo

I really like Picasso's quote "inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" and have always believed it fully. When I want to write, I'll sit down and start to write words I just enjoy the sounds of. Recently, I fell in love with the way "ill-fitting synonyms" sounded.

Often, this goes nowhere.

But sometimes I write and say it aloud enough that I find the line it was secretly a part of the entire time. Then I find the emotion anchored to that line and it all flows from there.

For longer form writing, I just jump in ready to trash a few pages if necessary.

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Beautiful insights into your writing methods, thank you for sharing! I hadn’t heard that Picasso quote before but I relate to it. I think if we as writers only wrote when we were inspired, we wouldn’t get much done.. we have to do it even when there is no ‘spark’ and go on a quest to find it!

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My haikus almost exclusively come to me in the middle of the night. In that twilight moment of juuuuuust going back to sleep after a trip to the bathroom :).

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Ooooh I love this, that liminal state of consciousness is such good soil for creativity!!

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No routine is the best routine - at least, in my current state of mind. I tend to write whenever my curiosity strikes. I'm very unconventional like that.

However, I do try to write at least one thing every day. It doesn't even have to be a full poem. Just an inkling is enough. Which means, I suppose, I find perfection in the imperfect.

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Sep 29, 2023·edited Sep 29, 2023Author

This is a lovely, unstructured way to go about it - not forcing it, but also ensuring you do the work at least a little bit every day! <3

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That's exactly it. Like I think writers often get burned out because they want to write everything down all at once. Just to get it done. Or they force themselves to write. Either way, it is about finding a balance that works for you.

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