4 expert tips for writing more in 2024Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter2 min readJust now-- Were back and better-rested than everIssue #239: jungle gym careers, Billie Holiday, and questioning your defaultsWriting forces you to hear your thoughts, goes one of my favorite tweets. It is a confrontation with yourself.One of my resolutions this year and maybe one of yours is to write more. (Thankfully, theres a platform for that.) Making space in your life (and your mind) to actually get your ideas and experiences down, though, is harder than it sounds. In a story Ive revisited a few times over the years, writer and illustrator Sophie Lucido Johnson lists her tips for getting out of your own way. Ill be carrying these with me in 2025Confront the Mirror Monster, the voice in your head that says things like no one will ever care about what youre writing. One tactic: Dont reread what youve written until youve finished a Bad First Draft. Novelist Eileen Pollack calls this a zero draft, which I like because it sounds attainable. Just get something down, and then you can improve it.Stop downhill. Stop writing when youre excited to keep going, not when youre stuck so when you reopen that doc, you have a clear next step.Set a timer. The other monster in your head might say I dont have time for this! To vanquish this monster, try the pomodoro method. Set a timer for 25 minutes. Dont let yourself Ctrl-T away from that doc until time is up.Its just work. Its sometimes helpful to view writing less as creativity and more as simply work. It happens one word and one sentence at a time. Henry Miller has a rule (quoted by Johnson): When you cant create, you can work. Harris Sockel 1 sentence, 1 storyYour career is not a ladder its a jungle gym. (Matt Kornfield)Overheard at senior homes: the lyrics to Billie Holidays Easy Living (Loren Kantor)Dont rush to judge your past self they were doing their best with the information they had at the time. (Rikard A. Hjort)I love this list of unexpectedly specific life tips from Sasha Chapin: Being silly is a gift. You un-taboo silliness for everyone around you. A dose of practical wisdom: on resolutionsOne of the best resolutions you can make is to simply start questioning your defaults: the routines, behaviors, and mindsets you find yourself naturally falling into. Most of these are somewhat arbitrary, and changing a few of them, even in subtle ways (a new path for your midafternoon walk, a tweaked morning routine) may lead to a better life.