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Creating a Writing Habit (Especially When You’re Over 40)

How some simple tricks and a little willpower can help you write regularly so you can create and finish a manuscript.

If you’ve heard the words, “a writer writes every day,” and despaired, you are not alone. Many of the so-called “rules” for writing are not realistic to the world we live in today. But, we also have technology that was once unheard of. We have laptops, tablets, and phones. We have recording devices, cloud storage, and email. We are capable of writing in more places than a garret with a small window and thus can create a writing habit that is more fluid and natural.

Starting this writing habit when you are over age forty, or fifty, or sixty, or older, feels as if we are starting too late, as if we lost decades of time that we can never make up. And combined with the responsibilities we shoulder, it is easy to imagine that we’ll never achieve our authorship dreams.

This is not true. We can start at any age and should. Writing, if it is your passion, is something within you. You have to give yourself permission to access that deep well of creativity and write regularly without endless editing so you can finish a manuscript. We’ll talk about how to do this and how to face the most important roadblock—fear. Writing is essentially an exercise in overcoming fear and learning to trust yourself and your instincts. We will work together to identify our roadblocks, overcome our self-doubts, and develop a writing habit.

Joelle M. Reizes, writing as J.D. Blackrose, is the author of the Summoner’s Mark series which includes Demon Kissed, Fae Crossed, Hell Bound, Samhain’s Bargain, Wish Magic, and Pinky Promise, through Bell Bridge Books. She’s published The Soul Wars, The Devil’s Been Busy, and the Zombie Cosmetologist novellas through Falstaff Books and is contracted for a new horror novel through Falstaff’s horror imprint, Falstaff Dread. She’s published short stories such as “The Space Ark,” in HOZ Journal of Speculative Fiction, “Welcome, Death,” in the Jewish Book of Horror, “Don’t Fool an Earth Witch,” in Mother’s Revenge, “The Book Burning,” in Curiosities, and “Poisoned by Sugar,” in Witches, Warriors, and Wise Women. “The Ghost Train,” was published by Third Flatiron in their Spring 2019 Anthology and Best of 2019 Anthology. Her most recent short stories include “A Sure Bet” in The Valkyries Initiative from CPK Publishing, and “It’s My Nature,” in Never Too Old to Save the World from Outland Entertainment. Under her legal name, Joelle M. Reizes, she co-authored three children’s books, “Courageous Candles,” “The Misshapen Hamantash,” and “Two Dinos at Shabbat Dinner.”