The Value of a Good Routine

For the first time in months, I missed a newsletter drop. I typically write this out the night before, but last week was an insane work week. By day, I work in digital advertising and last week was filled with upfront presentations where the big video companies put on a song and dance to try to wow advertisers into committing a bunch of money up front. There’s usually a flashy presentation, a musical guest, and occasionally a celebrity petting zoo. While they’re fun, it can be a lot to bounce around the city and ultimately disrupt the routine. I did see John Cena twice though!

That’s what I realized over the past week. I really value a good routine. I get up at 5 AM every day. I realized in my 30s that I’m a morning person and that has been a game changer. I enjoy getting up early, before everyone else in the house, and doing whatever I want. During the week, that’s going to the gym, but over the weekend, that can be writing, catching up on email, or watching a movie.

I realized though that I don’t really have a writing routine. I like my laptop and my desk in my office. It’s my safe space where I’m surrounded by my shelves of comics and action figures. I don’t have a set time that I write or a set amount of words or pages I try to get through each week. Maybe that’s something that’s holding me back from being a more accomplished writer, but I fear that if I treated it like that, it would seem more like a job and it might be more difficult to get the words out on the page. I enjoy writing, even when it’s challenging or I’m struggling with a story and I don’t want to lose that.

Do you have a writing routine? Is there a particular setup you need in order to start jotting down ideas? I’ve found that I at least need my laptop. I don’t like writing out stuff on my phone outside of short ideas.

I haven’t done a lot of writing these past two weeks. I shared the outline to Clean Up Crew with an artist friend and he gave me some great feedback on it. I’m really happy with how this story is shaping up. I intend to write out the scripts for all four issues ahead of time, first as an act of commitment, but second to ensure I know all the beats and there are no surprises coming down the line.

I also talked through potential ideas with this artist friend. This was the first time I’ve done something like this, collaborating from the start as we figure out what we both want to make and how we can do it together. It’s filled with a great energy and I’m excited for what may come from it.

While I’m really good at buying books and I can do it very quickly, it takes a lot more time and effort to read them. This past week I dug back into Monster by Naoki Urasawa. I’ve had all 9 volumes of the manga on my shelf for ages as I picked it up on the strong recommendation of Philip Sevy. I read the first volume ages ago, but never finished it, so I restarted the whole thing.

I’m only 3 volumes in, but holy crap this this is tense. I’ve found that manga is particularly good at this. I had a similar experience with Death Note, where the story jumps right up to a 9 on the tension scale and just stays there. It rarely wavers, keeping you on the edge of your seat for the whole ride.

Monster follows the innocent Dr. Tenma, a promising young man with a bright future as his life is thrown into chaos after a judgement call saves the life of a small boy who turns out to be a psychopathic killer. The poor guy was just doing his job. This would have been fine in literally any other case, but this one time, he’s nearly lost everything. That in and of itself is terrifying, how your whole life can be thrown into chaos at a moment’s notice.

The first three books have been insane so far so I have no idea what could possibly be in store for the final 6. I’m really enjoying it and I’m looking forward to starting up another Urasawa series, 20th Century Boys, later this year. That’s another series that I have collected and all of them are sitting on my shelf unread.

One of my goals for this year is to read more manga. So far, this year 27% of the comics I’ve read have been manga. This is up from 21% last year. I want to net out with at least 25% at the end of the year so I’m setting a good pace.