Coming Back To Writing After a Break

December is always a weird month for me. It's my favorite month, but a weird one. Nothing seems real. There's just too much non-real-life stuff going on, like vacation and traveling and holidays. It messes with your schedule and structure, and let me tell you, I don't do well without a schedule or structure. 

Obviously I didn't do so well with the keeping up on writing thing these last few weeks. (Sorry about the unannounced hiatus...I think it was actually really good for me, but I definitely don't want it to happen again.) I know some people are really good at finding time to get their writing and social media in even when they're traveling, but I am definitely not one of them. But that's a separate thing, and one I want to get better at. What I'm thinking about today is coming back to your normal schedule after the hiatus. 

Honestly, I think the best strategy is to just avoid the hiatus. I know for sure I could have done better at working on my novel the last couple weeks, and even though taking such serious time off had its benefits, in many ways its good to be back to a normal schedule and I hope to arrange my schedule and habits even better so that hiatus's like that don't happen in the future.

So that's for the future. I have some goals for this year that will hopefully keep me making good progress on all my projects. But what about coming back to it now? I've heard somewhere that it takes 17 days to form or lose a habit. If you don't write for 17 days, or even two or three, then you lose your momentum. How do you pick it back up?

I've had success reminding myself that I can start small. You don't have to write your entire novel the day you come back from Christmas break. Start with one page. Or one paragraph. Or one sentence. And that sentence often leads to a second sentence, then a third, then hopefully a fourth. And that's enough to start getting your momentum back. 

Really, you just have to do it. If you dropped the ball for a while, pick it back up. If you lost your consistency in the past, be consistent now. Start small with your one page, then come back the next day and do another. Keep coming back, and you'll be back in your old good habits.

I'm going to be working on that this year. I'm going to do better at structuring and scheduling my days, prioritizing all the things I want to do so I get as much done as I can. I am ready for some serious progress, 2015. 

Whatever you did for Christmas and New Years, let's start this year off strong. If you kept the ball going, good for you. Don't drop it now. If you dropped it for some vacation and family time, that's okay too. Just pick things up now, and let's go!

Sarah Allen