Morning routines

And losing them - rebuilding a habit when things change.

With thanks to our talented friend Chris Dessent who designed this amazing screen print of Peggy for Chris’s birthday a couple of years back.

Hey there, Bec here

I have always considered myself a morning person and in common with other morning people this makes me feel very smug. It’s a skill, a talent, a personality trait, a gift from the gods and, of course, nothing at all to do with chance or privilege.

Or so I thought. When our dog Peggy died last month I realised I wasn’t really a morning person.

Rather than jumping out of bed at the first trill of the alarm, I’ve been snoozing, setting it later and later, and when I decide to lift my head off the pillow it is to scroll whatever hellscape my phone leads me to.

No more being greeted with tail thumping joy each morning. Unconditional love on rising was a drug. I was hooked. Of course I would spring out of bed to be adored by the most magnificent of beasts.¹

» Read: Write or Do Nothing - Thoughts on Creative Unblocking

My morning routine was lost overnight.² I no longer potter about Hebden Bridge town centre with Peggy, stopping to say hello to delivery folk and street cleaners, early commuters, shop openers and other dog walkers.

My writing routine

It was the perfect set up for my writing. After our walk and a hearty breakfast I’d go to my desk to write and Peggy would follow - when she was pup she wanted to play, but as she got older, she lay on the office sofa snoring.

Not only was she the trigger for a morning routine, she was our muse. Our last book was composed on long dog walks on the hills over Hebden Bridge, the moors where the Brontes once walked, Ted Hughes found inspiration, and Sylvia Plath complained about the mist and mizzle. Countless other local authors³ do the same. On the tops we’d argue over what to include, how to frame things, what needed doing next - all the while chucking sticks or snowballs for her to run after.

Now I need reminding to leave the house. I’m more likely to slide back into bed for a post-lunch nap than walk off a creative slump.

14 years is a long time to build and embed a habit and for that routine to be lost so quickly, well I am lost and sad and my writing is suffering.

Rebuilding a routine

A month has passed and I’m trying new things. Last week I gave morning pages a go, they have been helpful in the past and it only takes a little discipline to pick up my notebook rather than my phone. OK, there might have been some dog-themed poetry (doggerel?) to begin with, but by day five I managed to outline the chapters for my new book in a sleepy haze.

Post lunch I have been joining Mason Currey’s Worm School - a 2-hour online writing accountability group. For his fellow Pacific Coasters it’s 6am but for me it’s 2pm which has helped me to battle the afternoon slump and give me heaps of writing solidarity.  Thank you

Mason Currey

!

It takes time to build habits and I need to give myself some space to try out new things. They might not fill my heart in the same way Peggy did, but slowly, gently, I’ll find my way to a morning routine. And swap sadness for feeling smug.

As always, I’d love to hear about your experiences - use the comments to share stories of the fabulous dogs in your life, how they help you to write - or keep you from it. Let me know if you lost or rebuilt a habit and what worked for you.

Until next time, keep going, Bec

A few posts on habits (note to self)

How many days does it take to build a writing habit?

Preparing to write - a ritual for creativity

What Substack missed about writing habits

The habit myth

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Do you organise group support for writers? 

If so, you might be interested to know that we now offer group bookings on our successful 6 Week Writing RESET course.

Individual places cost £299 and our next course will run in January 2025. Interested? Just hit reply to this email and we can tell you more and talk through group discounts.

Before a RESET course starts we ask participants to score how satisfied they feel about their writing. This June, people gave an average rating of 4 out of 10.

After the course ends, we ask them again. Their average rating had doubled to 8. 🙌​

What could you achieve?

1. I have a magnificent husband and I’m not casting shade on Chris, but he is not a morning person and has never greeted me or the dawn with joy. That makes us the perfect partnership for dog ownership, me taking responsibility for the morning and him taking the late night shift.

2. Quick note to say, we had been preparing for Peggy to pass - while we had hopes for her immortality, she was 14 years old, in dog years, pushing 100.

3. You can see a list of local authors on the Bookcase Hebden Bridge Bookshop.org website - that’s quite some company!