Break These 3 Unwitting Writing Habits to Finally Get Your Novel Finished

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. Kahana, a 2021 NaNo sponsor, combines the ability to create split-screen environments with notes and reference materials on one side and documents being written on the other with a simple folder hierarchy and beautiful UI. Today, content writer Gia Marcos shares some tips to break bad writing habits you might not even realize you do:

Writers are such creatures of habit. Whether you’re a planner, plotter, or pantser, your process is any behavioral pattern that has always worked efficiently. 

But often, you get attached to these “success” habits—not necessarily the practice itself but the ways in which you maintain them—and gradually kill your creativity. You tend to focus on results instead of enjoying the journey. But hey, it’s human nature and there are ways to get around it.

Here at Kahana, we help writers design healthy and fun processes. We work with an international community of writers who give us insight into their unique processes. As a result, we were able to identify three unwitting habits that are stopping many writers from getting their novels done. And we come bearing tips!

1. Waiting for Inspiration to Come 

“You’re more likely to act yourself into feeling than feeling yourself into action.” —Jerome Bruner, Harvard psychologist

Action precedes inspiration. You don’t wait for some kind of “purpose” or for motivation to hit. Just don’t over analyze what you want to do and turn it into a have-to.

Set the right intention—you want it so you’ll do it. It doesn’t matter how or where you start either. It can be at pre-writing, researching, drafting, free-writing, or obsessively editing that first sentence. The bottom line is, inspirations are down the road. 

You don’t need to be “driven” to get them (pun intended). Just take the wheel and go. 

2. Overlaps in the Stages of the Writing Process 

We discovered that it’s common for writers to do research while they’re already in the writing process. It seems harmless but in reality, it’s hurting your cognition. 

That feeling that you’re being more productive while multitasking is an illusion. It’s caused by the dopamine receptors released by your brain as it jumps from one task to the other.

During that time, your brain merely moves from one focus point to another and isn’t processing all of the stimuli you’re tapping into. 

As a result, you don’t gain the expertise or confidence you’re supposed to get from research so you can focus on your writing. So you either quit writing or continue with lingering doubts and develop unwitting habit #3.

3. Opening Multiple Browser Tabs (They’re Killing Your Brain)

Tab hoarding—we’re all guilty of this. And the brain processes it the same way it does multi-tasking. 

Combined together, habits 2 and 3 make the perfect recipe for not getting anything done. Then again, as humans, it’s a common struggle…

“People are attached to tabs because they view them as opportunities. People are queuing up these things because no one likes to lose out on opportunities,” says Aniket Kittur, a professor at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon. 

You’re probably thinking: “It’s not like there’s another way to keep tabs of all your references in one tab (no pun intended, this time).” But there is!

Kahana is an app that allows you to toggle between multiple references and your writing space in one window. 

How it works: 

1. You can clip web pages using our browser plug-in; upload documents from your device and save them in a Writing Hub
2. The Writing Hub is a split-screen window; on the left side, you have a viewing screen where you can toggle between your resources. On the right side is a writing space where you can create multiple notes.

You can collect all your research materials before writing, then write without disruptions, avoid multitasking, and allow you and your device to breathe. 

A Little Pep Talk

“A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.” —Mark Twain

We know breaking old habits can be challenging. So let that quote serve as a reminder that it’s okay to take your time. Take it as a little fun holiday, but a productive one. 

It’s a transitional phase where you’ll encounter surprises like new inspirations and maybe some creative skills you didn’t know you had.

It’s a great place to be in if you’re participating in NaNoWriMo. So if you feel pressured or held back by perfectionism, remember—nothing bad has ever come out of a well-enjoyed creative process.

Gia Marcos is a professional content writer based in Manila, Philippines. She is a contributor to Kahana and TheThings. Her current work in progress are short stories inspired by decadence and surrealist eroticism. When she’s not writing, she’s probably immersed in reading or keeping up with the latest films on Mubi and Criterion Channel.

Top photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash.