This year I need to be serious about my writing. And why is this?

Because I am edging quickly through my fifties

Because Bowie just up and left us (Ah, message of sorrow; message in a stopwatch)

Because thirty-five hours of my week are full of a day-job

But also because the light ahead is brilliant and enthralling when you look up along the cold, rutted path of serious discipline and rigour. I want to feel my boots jar devotedly on the frozen rills of mud as I trek steadily towards that light, that clarity. My compass will be a daily pen-to-paper habit.

Rilke insists that each moment must lean towards the words being written down, no matter what else. Resolve must fall like snow, throwing a lattice around the too-blowable grass and making it stand to attention. Intention is not enough – it will leave you sliding in the mud, leave flattened grass in your wake.

Crisp routines. Corral the time. Shining, steady writing habits to beckon me to the desk. Early in the day. Before bed, under the moon. To the tune of the house sleeping.

So. Mornings, then. Morning tea whilst ideas dawn. Hot, silky sips from the thin-walled white mug while setting out the laundry to air. Catching night-thoughts before they slide away. My palm dashing the tee-shirts flat against the hot metal of the Aga.The wind rushes down the ink-black flue pipe; it gives a ship’s roar and the house lurches, detaches, and is off across the sea. A thousand nautical miles away from the day ahead, which waits, pirate-like, to capture this ship’s captain. I float, rhythmically smoothing hankies and towels against the smooth cast-iron, fingers passing over the chrome nuts so neatly bevelled into the top – well-engineered, entrancingly reliable. I absorb their essence. Waves of warmth emanate into the dawn’s cold spaces – they turn me around at last; they send me in a drift to the kitchen table and the notebook lying open.

One good morning habit. One serious step closer to writing daily.

Go to the ABOUT page to find out why these habits are important to my 2016 writing journey