Bookish Thursday - Rumination Remedies by Sheri McGregor - Guest Post

Today you don't have to listen to me. I am fortunate enough to have a guest post by Sheri McGregor, author of Rumination Remedies. 

Check out WOW-Women on Writing for their interview with Sheri McGregor and enter for a chance to win a copy. I'm enjoying mine!

Writing Rituals Can Help

A guest post by Sheri McGregor, M.A.

When starting my writing career, I had five young children. So, finding the time, space, and mental clarity to write took ingenuity and effort. I learned early on that quickly switching from momma mode to writing mode was essential. My brain needed a signal: Now we write.

What worked for me were rituals: a hot cup of coffee or tea, a physical space associated with words, and a time of day that inspired me. In the early years, that meant a notebook, a pen, and the hushed, early morning hours before my family awakened. In the velvety pre-dawn light, I’d slip quietly into the living room and write by hand on legal-size notepads with smooth ink pens that became the tools of my creative trade. Later, the ritual evolved into an office nook and a desk I’d step behind each morning after dropping children off at school.

Even today, my writing mode often begins at dawn with a cup of coffee and my laptop perched on a flat laptop pillow that’s infused with crystals and a pleasant scent. Over time, those repeated actions became a ritual. Sit down, settle in, and the writer inside me wakes up.

As I discuss in Rumination Remedies, rituals aren’t always religious or ceremonial. The simplest of rituals can halt overthinking, as well as provide comfort, confidence, and focus. A mind cleared of must-dos or self-edits helps you capture your muse. And just as my quiet moments handwriting with a notepad shifted to a PC at a desk when the kids were at school, and now involve my lap-pillow and laptop, rituals easily shift to fit the rhythms of your changing life.

At some point, simply sitting down in my designated writing space was enough to flip the internal switch. Thankfully, I never lost the notebook ritual either. To this day, waiting in a lobby for an appointment or in my car for someone else gives me an unexpected pocket of solitude. A notebook and a smooth pen become a portable doorway into writing mode. It’s remarkable how quickly the mind settles when it recognizes a familiar cue.

Our brains love predictability. Familiar cues are interpreted as safety. A ritual acts as a bridge, a reliable, familiar crossing between everyday life and the deep space entered while writing. Soon, we find ourselves in a state of flow—that spellbound state where everything else slips away—also talked about in Rumination Remedies. 

The next time you need to carve out time to write, cut the settling-in time by using a ritual. Start with something simple like a pen you use for this one purpose. Or maybe a chair you settle into or a particular teacup you choose for your writing time. Even a stick of gum or a cube of dark chocolate you designate for the task works well. 

Try something small. Repeat it for a few days. Allow your brain to learn the pattern.

Sometimes when writers sit down to write, their thoughts get noisy or feel tangled with distress. Rumination Remedies widens your insight and offers a plethora of simple, sensory, repeatable practices that are based in neuroscience and calm the mind. You and your writing are worth a look into what, specifically, hinders your progress—and what will help. Writing rituals are one way to show up focused and ready to create.