Staying in Writing Shape

The work of no agenda, no deadline, no stress

“For the past sixteen years, pretty much every single day, I’ve penciled a journal entry into a spiral notebook. It is a practice field, an exercise bike; I write in it to try to stay in writing shape.” Anthony Doerr, Four Seasons in Rome

There are nights when I close the house up for bed and linger in the doorway of my office. Neighborhood lights cast a faint glow through the window, and my eyes adjust. I see shelves stuffed with books and journals, family photographs, my long, wooden desk, and art made especially for me by dear friends.

Twenty years ago, Deb Taylor gave me a painting of a red-headed woman with a stack of books on her head, a teacup precariously perched on top. More recently, another friend, Alice Smith, designed and stitched a beautiful embroidery of the cover art from Why Everything That Doesn’t Matter, Matters So Much.

At the end of a weary day, all these things speak to me: “This is your room. This is your work. You are loved.”

My heart softens. Whatever I was anxious about two minutes before fades. I am overwhelmed with wonder and gratitude.

My eyes have filled with tears exactly twice during this office door pause. When it happened not long ago, I walked into the bedroom and told Chuck: I can’t get over it. God made me a writer, and I can’t get over it.

This writer thing is not news to him or to me. But I feel it as a constant astonishment—an ever-unfolding joy that deepens with age. I honestly can’t get over it.

More than just a physical space, the office I inhabit is also a sign and symbol of my life season. Writing disciplines are no longer hard to maintain. I go to my desk in the morning and work until I need to move on.

I’m protective of my writing time. Focused. Set free. I don’t worry about results or writing a certain number of words every day. I only want to show up faithfully, put my fingers on the keyboard, and see what comes.

Painting by D. L. Taylor

It was innocent enough when it started. One morning in July of 2024, I took my coffee to the garden porch, opened my laptop, named a Word doc with the date and day of the week, and wrote whatever came to mind. I did it again the next day and the next. Chuck and I had been working hard to launch our book, and I needed the sweet revival of writing for the joy of it: no agenda, no deadline, no stress.

I returned as often as I could and felt my resolve strengthen. I wanted to grow as a writer. My habit solidified. I finally understood the agency of my age and began to say, “no thank you” to offers and requests that would take me off course, and “yes” to keeping the morning date with myself. Age is a teacher of many things; limitations are one of them.

When I sat down to write, I didn’t have one big idea to explore; I had small ideas, life details. I’m a diarist, so those aren’t hard to find. If you don’t know what to write about, start with yesterday, or the week before, or right now.

If I wanted to describe what the bees were up to in my garden, I did. I wrote with an openness to what was on my mind, in my view, or in my current experience. It was and is in-the-moment writing, practice in the most literal sense—what Anthony Doerr called staying in writing shape.

Showing up regularly was like turning on the tap.

As weeks and months went by, my commitment to the study and practice of writing increased. I subscribed to Masterclass, listened to podcast interviews with writers, attended every author event in my city that I could manage, and joined two writers’ groups. My writer friends are the beautiful literary community I never knew I needed.

In all these ways, I am a sponge. My appetite for listening, learning, and writing is insatiable. The more I give myself to it, the more I want. The freedom and flow are good. Necessary. Timely.

A funny thing happens when you show up to your writing week after week, and month after month. Pages multiply. Themes develop, and even chapter titles name themselves.

One of my writing groups helped me see this. I volunteered to read one night since I hadn’t offered yet. I’d been holding out until I had something more substantial than a bunch of disconnected pages. But these folks share writing in process, so I chose a few rough bits and read them out loud. My friends gave me an unexpected gift. The hot-tea-and-honey of encouragement. They pulled sentences, phrases, and topics from what I read and offered them back to me.

The next morning, when I sat down to write, chapter titles and themes came floating down like puzzle pieces. I made a new file.

What I had perceived as habit-making and daily practice has become something more, even as it remains the non-stressful approach I need at this time in my life. Rather than straining toward one topic and waiting for it to drop, the contents are coming in the process of writing from one day to another.

The practice of writing meets the mystery of writing every time.

Last fall, I was visiting with an out-of-town family member. She asked what I’d been up to and I told her about the whole thing—the daily writing, the community, the learning, the focus and joy of the work. She smiled and said, I hope I have time for that someday. I hope she does, too. But you do have to choose it if it chooses you.

P.S. To be a writer is to be a reader. Like so many others, my favorite novel of 2025 was The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. If you haven’t read it, go quickly to your local bookstore or library!