She’s here! Say hello to my good friend Lissa Matthews.
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It’s early morning and I’m sitting at the coffee shop writing this blog post for Selena. I have an hour to work relatively undistracted before I need to leave and head home. This is a normal morning routine for me. I get up, shower, take my daughter to school, and come here to Caribou Coffee. I sit in the corner, away from the window because it’s just too damn cold right there.

You must wonder why I come here and why I just don’t go back home and write. The answer is simple. Focus. Right frame of mind. That’s what the coffee shop first thing in the morning is for me. The shop is empty, no one is here save for the stream of people walking in to get their own jolt of caffeine.

I have my netbook out, open, and ready to go. And the netbook, it goes everywhere with me. I can sit in the car and write while I wait for my daughter’s school to let out. I can write at the coffee shop, Panera, a friend’s house, in my own bathroom if I just need to get away and there’s no way to leave the house. But back to the routine… That’s what this is, too. A routine. I don’t do it every morning, but I do try for at least 3 days a week. I typically order a regular coffee or hot tea and an oatmeal. It’s soooooo very good.

After I get breakfast, I sit and start working. Usually by this time, I’ve got a good 45-50 minutes that I can write, but, I make the most of it. The music on the mp3 player drowns out any other noises and I rarely look up from the screen. If I’m really into the scene, I can usually make a pretty good dent in my daily word count.

This is how I have started 2010. I needed a routine, something to focus me, to get me and keep me going and this is what I have chosen to do. I don’t have a designated home office, so this little corner in the coffee shop is used as such. It’s mindset. I have found that when I follow this routine, I get a lot more done both in writing and in my homes life with housework, kids, etc…

And yes, this habit is expensive, but as a way to combat this, I budget every month for it. I put a certain amount on a Caribou card and when it’s empty, well, let’s hope it’s near payday. I know I can’t deduct it from taxes, but, if it helps me start my day and put me in the frame of mind I need to be in, then, it’s worth it.

We all have a routine we need to follow, a regimen that centers us, focus’ us on what we need to do. Some people need to shower and shave and dress the part. Some people need just get out of bed and grab the laptop from the floor beside the bed. Some need an assistant, a time clock, an office. We all have something different we need to do in order to get us where we need or want to be.

It’s not the same as having a nine to five job, but some need and do treat it like one. I don’t. I get up, do what I need to do, write what I need to write. And I love writing. I love this job, this choice I made but I have to be serious about it if I want to make it. So, I go to the coffee shop in the morning a few days a week to draw myself into the writer mind, though to be honest, my mind is always working, always thinking, always wondering about the story. But, it’s all in how I use my time that will get me where I want to go as an author.

It’s easy to squander money and time. We find ourselves buying more books than we write and spending more time on social media writing 140 characters than we do on our 40K novellas.

It takes discipline and structure to stick to or even come up with a routine, a ritual, a regimen. It’s different than having a to-do list, it’s having goals and accomplishing them. Sometimes the only way to accomplish our goals is to have the routine. Like me and my coffee shop and speaking of which, I should get back to my writing before I have to leave.

What is yours?

Thanks Selena for having me!

~lissa