Meet the author day four: my writing routine

Today’s #meettheauthor is about my writing routine.I’m on a kind of maternity leave at the moment so not writing very much if at all. And my routine is not very regimented even when I am working!But it goes something like this... I write on days when my daughter is in childcare or with another family member. So once she has been dropped off or handed over I will get a cup of tea and sit down at my desk, faff about for a bit then finally sink into it. Once I’m in the zone I don’t want to stop. I have to tear myself away for lunch or to pick my daughter up. Sometimes (when I’ve got a deadline or I’m really in the mood) I also sit down in the evening after she’s gone to bed.But when I’m not on a writing day or evening, I’m often thinking about the book I’m writing, solving problems in my head, listening to the odd podcast about writing... that kind of thing. I tend to set myself weekly word count deadlines to hit as I find that easier than a daily target because my days are so varied in terms of the time I get to write.I prefer to write out scenes in longhand and then type them up but sometimes that feels too time consuming so I just type straight away. For my next book I’m hoping to carve out the time to write it all in longhand... I did that for my first novel and missed doing so for my second.I love these chunky notebooks from Paperchase for this purpose but also flimsy exercise books like we used to have at school! And these two pens are my go-to writing implements. The multicolour biro for planning and plotting, the inky one in black or blue for writing.