The advice is not always good. We are told that to be a serious writer, we must have a definite routine. Wake early before the crack of dawn, light a fragrant candle, meditate, journal a few pages, and then write thousands of words in a state of flow for hours on end. Reality is quite different. Creativity isn't a faucet we can turn on at will, as long as we follow the correct rituals. But here is my truth: I have never had the luxury of that kind of structure. My writing happens in the in-between spaces of my day, in moments snatched between care giving and conversations, between emails and errands, between one thing that needs tending to and the next that cannot wait. My computer is on from 7 in the morning to sometimes well past 8 at night, not because I am always writing, but because I need to be ready when the words come. Or I need to write when I have the intervals between life. There are days the words come in a rush and I can drop everything to catch them before they vanish. At others, the words are recalcitrant, they come grudgingly, stubborn and slow, and I have coax them out line by line, like a shy child, painfully aware that anything, even one good sentence, is progress. And then there are the days when nothing comes at all, there's a blankness and I still sit with the silence, trusting that the well is refilling itself somewhere deep inside me. That the words will come. Eventually. No rituals. The writing life is not always orderly or aesthetic for the insta grid or measurable. It is not always a word count or a perfect desk or a set time. It is often messy, unpredictable, and deeply entwined with the rhythm of everyday life. If your writing life looks nothing like the one you imagined or the ones you see on carefully curated timelines, I want to tell you: that does not make it any less valid. The way you write, when you write, how you write, it is yours. Honour it. There is no perfect routine. There is only that which allows you to keep returning to the page, again and again, no matter what the day holds. #WritingLife #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #CreativeProcess #WomenWhoWrite #WritingInRealLife #CreativePersistence #AuthorThoughts

Me, attempting to write: *uugghhh* I'm so, so stuck on this chapter! I'm never going to finish this novel, never mind manage to get it published 😭 Also Me: ... I wonder if it's too soon to start practising my autograph...? 😏 #writers #WritingInRealLife

We can write... notes, lists, books, letters... #hvehuskies, #WritingInRealLife

❤️ #nisdearlyliteracy #wearewriters #writinginreallife

Writing 200 words at a time where I can through the day... 😍 #whereverwhenever #writinginreallife