“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” ― Ray Bradbury, “Zen in the Art of Writing”

Hopefully, you’ve spent some time now reading and internalizing the writing affirmations on this blog. The entries listed on this blog are based on the premise that several small choices can go a long way toward ensuring large, life-altering changes. The challenge now facing you is continuing to write each day, preferably on a book that you’ve always wanted to publish.

Falling into old habits, though, is easier than maintaining new ones.

To prevent that from occurring, begin each day by reminding yourself who you are: You are a writer, and writing is a way of life for you. Maybe you’ll need to scribble that on a piece of paper and tape it to your bathroom mirror so you read it every morning when you brush your teeth (What? You don’t brush your teeth every morning? Unfortunately, fostering that habit is beyond the purview of this blog.). After all, if you remind yourself daily to do something, you likely will do it, and soon it becomes habit.

At the end of each day, also remind yourself how much pleasure you derived during your writing session and the good feelings it left you with. Though writing can be hard work, you did receive a reward for it – the satisfaction that comes from being creative, the feeling of accomplishment as your book comes a few hundred words closer to being completed. By focusing on the benefits writing brought you, you’ll want to get back at it again tomorrow.

Another way to internalize the writing habit is to hang around people and places who will encourage and reinforce it. For example, join a writers’ group or regularly attend book readings. In economics, this is known as “choice architecture,” in which the decisions you make are largely based on the choices offered to you. Hence, if you wish to write more, then organize your time so you’re around people in which writing, as one of many choices about how you’ll spend your free time, looms large.

Simply put, change your habits, and you’ll change the outcomes in your life. After all, if you take up gardening next year, you’ll probably start receiving compliments on your beautiful rose bush. If you want to receive compliments on your book, then take up writing next year (And start brushing your teeth when you wake up, okay?).

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.