The Necessary Space: Why You Should Ritualize Your Writing Time
Not long ago, T Kira Madden posted on her Instagram about how she ritualizes her writing time as a way for her to make the process unique, to differentiate it and make it more substantial than merely sitting down at her desk and waiting for the right words to come. It was a way to help her focus and add importance to the time she allowed herself to inhabit this space.
In an interview with Lumina Journal from 2019, Madden was asked about her writing practice:
“...I have my amber candle on that table, which is my writing candle. And I only light it when I'm writing, and the smell tells me it's time to work. I have certain ritualistic things that tell me this is a sacred time to do my work. I'm making the decision to do my work.”
A candle on her writing desk, the smell of the scented wax melting: that’s how she ritualizes her process. That’s what it takes for her to know that the time at her desk is “sacred.” Something as simple as her writing candle allows her to separate the task of writing from all other tasks and allows for the necessary mental space to create.
A Ritual for the Necessary Space
The mornings when I’m able to climb out of bed, bleary-eyed but clear-minded, are moments of success in a time when productivity seems impossible during these turbulent times.
On these mornings, I feed the cat and dog, enjoy a snack while my coffee pours from the Nespresso.
Once in my office, with my desk organized in the particular fashion, my notebooks open to the day’s project. I sit in the black leather recliner that survived four separate moves and read a short story followed by a few poems. It’s how I get my mind warmed up as I let the caffeine settle in. When it’s time to move to my desk and write, I only do so after I light a candle. By the time the heat melts the scented wax, I’m ready to begin.
It’s a meticulous process, one that has quite a few steps. Those steps lead me towards the necessary space I require to write. After I put down my pen or close out my draft on my laptop, I look forward to the next day because of those steps.
This process—my process—is a sacred time. As the flame of the candle flickers in the dim morning light, I cherish each moment.
Identify Your Writing Ritual
I didn’t realize my process was all that important to me until the last of my candles burned down, the wick too short to be usable. Only through the benefit of hindsight was I able to understand that the candles had all been part of my writing ritual.
Since the last of my candles burned down, writing has been difficult. Without a candle to light, I struggle to focus at my desk. Without the soft scent of teakwood, I’ve little incentive to remove myself from bed.
Of course, it might sound extreme to place this lack of writing all on candles. Perhaps it is. But my process—my writing ritual—is how I keep myself balanced, how I separate my writing time from all other time; it’s how I create the necessary space.
Without it, my mind wants to do everything but write.
And if you find yourself struggling to write, I suggest you take a moment to reflect on a time when you were most productive. What were you doing differently then? Can you apply that to now? If so, how?
Grant yourself a moment to try to reestablish a writing ritual to make the time at your writing space more sacred.
If you don’t think you’ve had one before and candles aren’t your thing, perhaps there is something else that you can do to help ritualize your writing time.
The Ritual of Plant Care
Before I discovered candles were the linchpin to my writing ritual, it was houseplants.
Back then, I lived at my mother’s boyfriend’s childhood home. It was during college—I was the “groundskeeper,” so he told the neighbors. Between classes and serving, my writing time was sporadic at best.And candles were a luxury item I couldn’t afford.
When my mother moved in with her boyfriend, and me, in turn, into his childhood home, she gave me four houseplants. She’d bought them when we moved into our second home, just down the street from our first.
While I didn’t know it at the time, my writing ritual then was to water the plants before each writing session.
Because I had no routine outside of my classes and work schedule, the mornings I had off I’d go to each of the plants and water them while water boiled for coffee. By the time they were properly cared for, coffee would be done and I’d be ready to sit down and write.
I remember feeling a sense of accomplishment after caring for those houseplants, a feeling I still have today after caring for the plants my partner and I have cultivated since moving in together. It was enough to relieve the anxiety that comes when staring at a blank page, which made it easier for me to string together a first sentence, a second, third, and so on.
Even though I didn’t know I had ritualized my writing time by watering plants, it was part of my writing process: I couldn’t sit at my desk unless I knew the plants had been cared for. That simple act was a meditative one that freed up the necessary mental space and allowed me to ease into the poem or story I was at work on without any anxiety. It made all the time I spent writing afterwards sacred. It made it matter.
So, take some time and look at your process. What can you add in to make it sacred? How can you ritualize your writing time to create the necessary space for your creativity?
At one point, it was plant care.
Now, it’s as simple as lighting a candle. But that time is still sacred as ever.
