At the NCTE conference in Boston, Tom Romano said that he switched up his writing routine this past summer. He took Penny Kittle’s advice and wrote first thing. He rose, wrote, headed downstairs for coffee, returned to his writing spot and wrote some more. THEN he had breakfast and hit the gym with his wife. He testified that writing first thing worked well.

As the snow is falling and my home is quiet (all three children needed their sleep after a day of snow tubing yesterday!), I was reviewing the syllabus for Teaching Composition and thinking about what Romano said. To let my last blog post hold me accountable, I’ve done well on my first goal for increasing my digital literacy capacity, but I’ve failed at my second. I look forward to “turning that failure inside out” this semester with Teaching Comp. and dissertating, and I plan to heed Romano’s sound advice. Routine is key. As Anne Lamott shared in Help, Thanks, Wow, she built in writing time just like she did flossing time. It’s time for me to develop a writing routine.