My 5 Worst Writing Habits

Every writer has habits, patterns, and idiosyncrosies that make them unique. Some writers wake up and write early in the morning. Others have a sixteen step system that gets them in the mindset to write. Whatever it is, no two writers are ever the same. But what about when it comes to the bad stuff? Are there more similarities than differences there? Read my five worst writing habits and tell me if we share any!

1: I tend to start writing without any sort of plan. Like any at all. My stories often begin as a collection of very intense vibes and an image in my head. Do they make it past that? Who knows!

2: I hyperfocus so hard on writing that I need really long breaks between projects. When I get going, I can't seem to stop writing and have days where I write 4k words or more. (Those aren't every day kind of days, but they do happen frequently when I've really hit my stride in a story.)

3: I talk to—I mean ARGUE—with my characters. Right out loud. And that's very distracting to my writing some days. I'm not exeggerating when I say I've had hours long debates about where the story is going, dialogue, and other such things with my characters. And when that happens, those hours can't be used for writing. (Plus my characters give me the silent treatment for a long time after.)

4: I become a little consumed with my stories and my worlds. Like "can't stop thinking or talking about it" obsessed. Which maybe doesn't sound like a bad thing, but when it happens, I kind of forget how to talk to people about anything else. And it keeps me up at night (which is a whole problem unto itself TBH). I've even forgotten to eat for several hours after I thought about doing so to finish a few chapters.

5: I can't keep writing if I don't have the perfect word to describe what's happening in my story. Which means many minutes and hours (and—embarrassingly—days) pouring through the pages of a thesaurus to find it. And lots of time procrastinating doing just that.

And those are my 5 worst writing habits. (I have a lot more too!)

What are yours?