What Is Your Writing Ritual?
Business coach Rachel Rodgers recently wrote about how she prepares for big presentations. She holes up in a hotel room the day before, rewrites her slide deck late into the night, stresses over each and every word, puts pressure on herself to perform perfectly, and then gives a flawless presentation. Because she always gets terrific results, this process has become her routine.
But when her own coach asked her why she couldn’t just relax, go to bed early, rise and shine, and be herself for her presentation, Rodgers had to stop and think about it. When pushed, she admitted that feeling stressed and pressured, toiling away into the early morning, had become her ritual. And the only way to break that habit was to change the ritual.
Rodgers’ description of how she approaches big tasks reminded me of how I write. After receiving positive reinforcement in college for pulling all-nighters to craft papers that earned As, I made that process my own ritual. Yes, it has evolved through the years to eliminate the all-nighters, but much of that routine has stuck.
An Evolving Habit
My typical writing process looks like this:
Prep. I reread the assignment and, if it’s an article or blog post, I’ll skim similar examples online to check the tone, style, and format. For ghostwriting clients, I’ll pull out the book and chapter outline to stay focused on how this chapter fits with the whole. Essentially, I want to understand expectations.
Collect. Then, as I always have, I still gather all the relevant information I’ll need in one place, go through it page by page, highlight important quotes, facts, and figures, and then start to decide where each piece will fit before I write a word. I do this in complete silence — no music or chatter around me, or else I can’t concentrate. I need to get my arms around the information before I can start structuring and filling in sections.
Set up. Once I have the big picture, I then obsess about the first sentence, followed by the first paragraph. I find it difficult to proceed until that lead is what I’m after — it guides how I set up the whole document. This insistence on finalizing the lead often makes me spend a good 40% of my time on the first section of any project, but the remaining 60% tends to flow pretty easily once I get it right.
Research. Most of the business writing I do has a need for some kind of fact or figure. One way my process has changed in the last few years is through artificial intelligence (AI). Where I used to use Google to track down statistics and studies I could reference in the articles, blog posts, or ghostwritten books I work on, I now start with AI because Google generates what I’ve found to be incomplete results since integrating AI. Google offers more summaries, it seems to me, than pure search results.
I use Claude to identify potential research studies or reports related to my topic. Then I verify what the research says by going to the source. Because Claude can compare and contrast multiple reports, I’ve found it much more efficient to start with a list of possible studies and then zero in on the one that best fits my project.
Draft. I use my chapter outline or article assignment to break the document up into sections with headers that preview what’s to come. I typically set a word count goal for the day to ensure I stay on track to hit my deadline. Some days I’ll be done early and other days I work late into the evening — but no more all-nighters. My brain doesn’t synthesize material as well after midnight, I’ve found.
Correct. I have Grammarly running in the background on my computer, which helps me find extra “that” s and suggest more succinct ways of making a point; with low-word-count articles, this can be especially helpful. I don’t rely on it heavily, though, since I often disagree with Grammarly’s recommendations.
Edit. Whenever possible, I set drafts aside overnight to get some distance from the writing process, so I can review what I wrote with fresh eyes in the morning. When I edit, I print out my draft and review it with a red pen before making changes in the Word document; for some reason, seeing things on paper helps me spot problems faster.
Final review. Before I send along anything I’ve drafted, I read it one last time. Although I’ve read it dozens of times by this point, I inevitably still come across something that needs tweaking or a typo. So I fix it and send it along to my client via email.
So I’m curious. What is your writing ritual? How do you prepare to write or work on a project?
How Do You Write?
Have you built in pressure that doesn’t need to be there? Do you overedit? Do you believe the pressure of a deadline is the only way you’ll finish your work on time?
I know many of my colleagues like the energy of a bustling coffee shop, so they’ll relocate there some days to get work done. Other writers work on laptops in bed or on a comfy sofa.
Do you write longhand with a pen or pencil? I used to, but I’ve become dependent on my desktop computer now. I can’t write without my hands poised above the keys on the keyboard.
I’m always trying to become more efficient and effective in my writing, so I am truly curious to hear how you complete a writing task. What helps you write faster, and what slows you down?
