Writing a memoir (or any full-length book) is a marathon, not a sprint. While some great progress can be made in shorter, dedicated times like writing retreats or three-day weekend lock-ins, the fact of the matter is that you will need to find a way to make writing a part of your regular life if you want to finish your book. Waiting only for big blocks of free time doesn’t work, because they are so far apart you lose the thread between them. “Write every day!” is commonly the opposite advice, but when that also isn’t sustainable, writers often find themselves at square one, feeling like a failure. A writing routine doesn’t have to be strenuous, everyday, or even rigid to be effective—it just has to be a regular part of your life—not the platonic ideal of a writer’s life, but your actual life. This week, we’ll talk about how to shape a writing routine in a way that you can actually stick to it.
Before we get into today’s post, we wanted to ask—do you have a plan for actually finishing your memoir? If not, we know you aren’t making the progress you hoped for. That’s why we developed The Memoir Method Checklist. This free guide (and video training!) will take you through every single step you need from idea to published marketable book. Grab it now at https://pageandpodium.com/checklist
Be realistic
When I was a baby writer, I was a camp counselor for a writing camp for high school students. We often had guest speakers, and I remember one writer who spoke about her writing routine. She described how she and her partner would rise about five and take a quiet breakfast on their Appalachian deck and think about their creative pursuits for the day. She would then write continuously from about six or seven until about lunchtime. After lunch, they attended to emails and communication and whatever errands they needed. Then she and her partner would swap their morning’s work and discuss it until sharing dinner and then going early to bed.
I startled all my writer-campers by quietly crying as she recounted this routine. Oh, my—I wanted that life so badly. It seemed like the absolute ideal of a creative life, a dream. I wondered when I would be able to have it, too. I wondered how I could make all the other parts of my life fit in 2-3 afternoon hours so I could spend all the rest of it writing, thinking about writing, or sharing my writing.
I really wish someone had been there to tell me I shouldn’t try to map my creative life onto someone else’s. Especially not when I was a working, teaching, writing, and studying college student and the creative person in question was a retiree. Not to mention that voluntarily getting up at five was never going to be a thing for me, even if I did have a mountain sunrise to see.
When you set up your writing routine, remember that you are not trying to build a new writer’s life whole cloth—you are carving space for writing out of a life that already exists. Be realistic about how much time you can find.
Connect writing with something already in your routine
First, we encourage writers to anchor their writing time to something that already exists in their daily or weekly rhythm. Most of us move through predictable patterns without thinking much about them—wake up, commute, meals, get kids settled, wind down for the night. Weekends may look a little different, but they usually have their own familiar beats too. These built‑in structures are incredibly useful when shaping a writing routine because they’re already reliable. You won’t forget to go to work on Monday. You won’t forget when it’s time for bed. When writing gets attached to something that steady, it becomes part of the “set it and forget it” flow of your life.
For Amanda, this currently looks like a standing Sunday morning coffee date with her best friend. They meet at the same café, at the same time, every week, something she genuinely looks forward to. She decided to attach her writing time to that ritual by arriving a couple hours early to write before the coffee date begins. Because the coffee date is one of her favorite weekly activities, the excitement of it naturally pulls her into the writing time that precedes it. That enthusiasm becomes fuel.
I’ll be honest—this advice is the hardest for me to follow myself. Routine isn’t natural for me, and I enjoy a lot of novelty and chasing different things. So, while Amanda sets her writing routine every few months, I establish mine weekly. However, I still attach it to something I will look forward to and naturally hold in my mind.
One size doesn’t fit all
As I demonstrated in my opening example, we should all resist the urge to copy someone else’s writing routine. It sounds obvious, but it’s one of the most common traps memoirists fall into. Inside the Memoir Method group, we often talk about how wildly different the routines are among writers and how important it is to honor those differences. I tend to write late at night, after the sun has set with lights low. That quiet, interruption‑free stretch at the end of the day is when I can let go of everything else and sink into the creative flow. Amanda is the opposite. Anyone who has been on a late-afternoon call knows her mind down-shifts starting around four. Evening writing simply isn’t realistic for her, and it’s not when she does her best work. She needs her writing time to happen before noon, ideally as one of the first things she does in her day.
Neither way is the “right” way, but both are the best ways for us. The only routine that will work for you is the one that actually works for you—not the one that works for your favorite author, your writing buddy, or the internet.
This is also why we are cautious about the classic advice to “write every day.” While there is a kernel of truth in it, it’s not a universal rule. The real benefit wasn’t the daily word count, but in never being far from the project.
But here’s the key: you don’t have to write every day to get that benefit. What matters is staying connected to your project often enough that it remains present in your mind. That might mean writing three mornings a week, or one long session on the weekend, or a couple of focused hours tucked into a predictable pocket of your schedule. The frequency isn’t the point, the fit is. When you choose a routine that aligns with your energy, your responsibilities, and your real life, you create a writing practice you can actually sustain.
Create a chain effect
Our third tip is to treat each writing session as a link in a chain. In the Memoir Method group, we call this the “chapter train.” You draft one chapter, then the next, adding on cars and building momentum without circling back to edit until the full draft is complete. But the real key to keeping that momentum alive is simple: at the end of every writing session, plan the next one.
This practice should be held sacrosanct—especially when the writing gets hard. Amanda had been working on a particularly heavy chapter, one that felt tedious, emotional, and draining. When she finally finished the second half of the chapter, every part of her wanted to pack up and leave. But first, she set up her next writing session, ensuring the chain wouldn’t be broken. She opened her outline, found the next chapter, copied its description into a new document, and spent about twenty minutes sketching a quick sub-outline for the chapter. She mapped out which moments would become scenes, where reflection belonged, and any research or concepts she wanted to weave in. It wasn’t elaborate — just enough to give the next chapter shape.
Because we write for clients and work with several manuscripts at a time, our personal writing time often comes with long stretches in between. Without this small step, we’d have trouble remembering where we are supposed to pick up and start each session with a demoralizing exercise of finding our place. With that outline in hand, we can dive straight into the fun part: writing a scene, expanding a reflection, or starting wherever out energy guides us. That simple bit of planning creates a chain effect that makes each session more efficient, more focused, and far more enjoyable.
Make a book plan
We are mighty champions of the outline because having a plan is one of the most essential elements of finishing a memoir. Without it, every writing session begins with the exhausting question, What am I supposed to be doing today? With it, you always know where you’re headed.
Having an outline is like planning out a map and a route for yourself. You might deviate from the plan, sure, but with the plan it place you won’t get lost entirely. Also, when you have the plan in place, detailing your next session like we suggest in tip three becomes so much easier.
Outlining doesn’t box you in; it frees you. It gives you a pre‑planned approach for each writing session, so when you sit down each week, you’re not reinventing the wheel. You already know what the next chapter is, what it contains, and what you’re aiming for. That little bit of structure makes your writing routine smoother, more efficient, and far more sustainable. Having a plan is one of the greatest assets you can give yourself as you move from session to session and steadily build your book.
Do not punish yourself when things vary
A writing practice built on guilt collapses quickly, while encouragement and self‑kindness keep you coming back. Even professional writers and coaches have weeks when the work just doesn’t happen and that’s normal.
For Amanda, it was a hard scene that came up and the chapter train had to halt for a couple weeks. But it didn’t derail—it just faced a setback. Refusing to feel guilty about setbacks and instead being proud of yourself when you come back to the table is not a subtle attitude shift, it’s a major commitment to making writing a real, organic, and regular part of your whole, imperfect life.
Amanda shares this because discipline doesn’t have to be harsh to be effective. You can force yourself to write, but the work suffers and so do you. A routine built on compassion, structure, and gentle accountability will always carry you farther than one built on self‑criticism.
Creativity is your birthright
Please remember that writing routines are meant to evolve. Different seasons of life call for different ways of showing up to the page, and needing to adjust your process is not a failure. Creativity is your birthright and making time to be with your thoughts and your stories is part of being human. So instead of beating yourself up, she invites you to experiment with a writing routine that truly serves you and your book, and that feels good to live inside.
Reading is essential to improving your writing skills, and reading like a writer means seeing past the glossy end-result into a book’s structure and the author’s choices about how the story is told. Learning to read like a writer doesn’t mean learning how to merely imitate but learning the craft by example. We’re excited to announce the launch of our Memoir Method Book Club! Your first session is free, so sign up to save your seat here.
