A Kernel on Momentum

and how to get your writing up and running

An object in motion stays in motion, while an object at rest stays at rest unless acted upon. Now Newton wasn’t thinking about habits when he discovered this law, but that’s precisely what comes to my mind: A habit in practice stays in practice. You can fill in the blank with whatever you’d like. What I want to focus on today is writing. 

Writing won’t become a habit unless I write.

Since I began taking writing seriously, I’ve written at all times of the day, multiple days in a row or days apart. I’ve written generatively, then to revise. I’ve written in spurts or in regular blocks endcapping work shifts. I’ve managed to put in the work without developing a consistent habit out of writing. 

At the start of the month, my fellow Kernelists and I, along with a few other writer friends, started a novel incubator. We each have a novel we wanted to finally commit to, no more excuses. With my lack of prior consistent writing habits, I knew I needed to make some changes—and I was ready to. When we met to discuss our individual writing goals, as a self-proclaimed “slow writer,” I landed on writing 300 words each day. Because I felt the urgency to tell this story and to flick away my fears (of failure, of not being able to write a novel—or the one that I want to, etc.), I knew I needed the consistency of spending time with my novel each day. As record producer Rick Rubin says, “Good habits create good art.”

As of writing this essay, I am 25 days into the incubator and have successfully written 300 words each day. In fact, I’ve even exceeded my word count most days. By showing up to the page and chipping away at my novel, I built the momentum I was craving. Don’t get me wrong, with a small daily goal, the idea of my novel getting completed still felt daunting. But then as each day passed and I checked off my daily word count, I soon had 2,000 additional words towards my novel, then 4,000, then 8,000. 

And as each day passed, the writing felt easier. I was no longer stuck on one sentence for twenty minutes. I could easily knock out 100 words in that time. Part of this proficiency was because I waited until late at night to start on my goal, and I pushed through because I just wanted to get to bed. But then I had time off work and started writing in the mornings and afternoons, too. I developed the ability to be less precious with my first draft, to leave it be so long as it was pushing the story forward. 

As a former runner, I never understood Haruki Murakami’s philosophy that writing was like running. Running was easy for me, or rather, the endurance that running required was a mental block I could work through. But writing! How could crafting beautiful sentence after sentence until it became a structured story be the same as running? 

After the momentum I’ve built over these past 25 days, I finally understand. In What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Murakami writes about training your muscles to run longer distances. Later, he compares writing to that process: “You have to continually transmit the object of your focus to your entire body, and make sure it thoroughly assimilates the information necessary for you to write every single day and concentrate on the work at hand. And gradually you’ll expand the limits of what you’re able to do.” That is: you have to train your writing “muscle” so that the process becomes easier, inevitable, and you’re able to build up to your goal. 

Murakami takes it a step further when he says that writing in general is mental labor, but writing a novel is manual labor. “The whole process,” he says, “sitting at your desk, focusing your mind like a laser beam, imagining something out of a blank horizon, creating a story, selecting the right words, one by one, keeping the whole flow of the story on track—requires far more energy, over a long period, than most people ever imagine. You might not move your body around, but there’s grueling, dynamic labor going on inside you.”

I sure hope my newly cultivated writing practice sticks. If you’re stuck like I was and looking to build momentum, here are some tips:

Consistency is key…

I understand that not everyone has the privilege or ability to write every day. But showing up for your writing practice with some type of consistency is key. Writing words towards my first draft each day is how I’ve been consistent—and it works for me. Whether you read a part of your work-in-progress each day or carve out a couple hours each week to write, create a writing habit that you can maintain.

…But don’t overwhelm yourself

Before writing daily, my writing was done more sporadically, so I knew that I had to set realistic expectations. For instance, while Neidy’s daily word count goal has been 1,000 words, if I had set that for myself, I would have failed before I started. Three hundred words is doable for me—even if I’m having a crap day. It is something that is achievable, but also, since the word count is lower, it’s a goal that I can often exceed, which feels good. 

Rest when needed…

While I’ve managed to keep to my daily writing goal so far, I know there will come the day when life gets in the way and I am unable to write. And that will be okay. The thing about habits and consistency is that once the habit has been “broken,” it can feel like a failure on your part and discourage you from continuing. But we’re not robots or machines, we are human, and that needs to be accounted for.

…But don’t use it as an excuse

My habits go to die when I need a day off from them and then decide the following day that one more day off will be fine until it is no longer a habit. That is: the longer I am not writing, the harder it is to start writing again. Or as Murakami says about marathon training, “I never take two days off in a row.” So if I need a day off from writing, I am going to do everything I can to continue writing the next day, or else I suffer the consequences—and my fear wins.

Find accountability

The only reason I’ve been able to even build this habit is because of the accountability I’ve found through my novel incubator and writing friends. Left to my own devices, I would get nothing done. My brain craves external deadlines, and that’s exactly what the systems I’ve set up for myself do. The novel incubator meets once every fortnight, which gives me 14-day increments to work towards my goals—and the ability to adjust the goal if needed for the next 14 days. And my writing friends are usually down for a writing sprint (shoutout to Neidy who I saw for like 10 days straight and who is my body doubling bestie—a kernel on body doubling to come!), which ensures that I will focus on my goals during that time.

Don’t forget to have fun

The rigidity of building writing habits might sound like it would strip away any creativity, but I’ve found it to be the opposite. Having built-in writing time throughout my days gives me the space and constraints to activate my creativity. I’ve also taken a note from Sarah and started using a writing notebook where I keep track of scene ideas for my novel, daily word counts, and more. 

My kernel of advice: Build momentum by creating consistent writing habits—and watch as your work takes shape.

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Inspiration, Information, & Insight

• This week Sarah finished Further News of Defeat, a collection of stories by Michael X. Wang, who is leading her MFA fiction workshop this semester. Although these stories range in setting from Imperial China to present-day America, they are all loosely connected to a particular Chinese village. They also vary widely in tone from the satirical “New Work in New China” to the horror-infused “Cures and Superstitions,” to the heartbreaking title story—yet together they make a cohesive thematic whole. This has Sarah thinking more creatively about how to assemble a dynamic yet coherent short story collection of her own.

• Natalia finished On Beauty and she has many final thoughts. Here are a few. She appreciated the variety of characters, the clarity of each of their voices, and the pacing that allowed for their arcs to culminate all at once. It also brought up questions about how much the reader needs to like a protagonist to be invested in their outcome. Finally, two main characters, an academic husband and a non-academic wife, are a vastly different version of a couple that Natalia is writing in her novel-in-progress. This reading helped clarify what is right and what is missing from her characters.

• Shelby continued reading Night of the Living Rez and is still thoroughly enjoying the connected short stories. She’s also been working towards her novel-in-progress goals while figuring out time management for other writing tasks now that she’s back to work (goodbye, staycation). As her goals and lists grow, she’s beginning to feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day!

• Neidy made lots of headway on her novel-in-progress this week. Through exploratory writing, she fixed a plot hole and made key discoveries about a character's motivations. She is celebrating 40,000+ words written toward her first draft!