I love routine. Most days I climb out of bed in the morning knowing exactly what I’m going to do: listen to a dharma talk while doing Pilates; groom Dawn, my little cavalier King Charles spaniel; shower and dress; prepare and eat breakfast; walk Dawn and Sadie, my partner’s Sheltie; settle in to write.

After that my days veer in different directions, but usually that’s the way they begin.

It’s a privileged routine. I recognize that. I don’t have to go to another job to support myself and a family. I don’t even have to divide my days between writing and part-time teaching any longer. I don’t have to feed and clothe and get kids out the door to school, either. Or see my hours sucked away by babies. As I approach my 75^th birthday, all that is behind me.

But even at this point in my life, it is routine that gives my days shape and meaning. And when I was younger and my time was wrapped around children, my own and foster children and exchange students, and by the demands of being a clergy wife, routine was what made a career as a writer possible.

In my early adult years, I wrote in the cracks of time, whenever I could. Once I began aspiring to publication, I rose in the morning in order to write. There might be half a dozen responsibilities, even more, that lay between me and the sacred time I would spend at the typewriter or computer, but writing was the centerpiece of my day . . . every single day.

I have watched many aspiring writers struggle to find a place in their lives for the work they so long to do. I have seen them beat themselves up again and again over not spending enough time writing, whatever enough might be. “I should be writing more!” (We are so good—especially women—at shoulding ourselves.) But the secret, at least the only secret that has every worked for me, is routine.

If your schedule doesn’t permit you to write every day, then choose a time, even if it’s only one day a week—two to four on Saturday afternoons at the library, perhaps—and make it sacred. Which is another way of saying make it routine. You’ll get a whole lot more writing done in two hours once a week than you will in a year of bemoaning the fact that you never have enough time to write. Choose a time that works for you. If the thought of rising at 4 a.m. to write before other responsibilities descend makes you roll over and close your eyes, then choose your lunch hour or that first quiet time after the kids are securely in bed. Whatever time you choose, make sure it’s truly a reasonable one for you, one you can go to without beating yourself into submission, and then stand firm.

It helps many people to sign up for a class or a writers’ group—or an MFA program—so as to have regular deadlines to meet. If you don’t have some outside structure such as a writers’ group available, make the commitment to a friend—even a long-distance one—and report your successes and failures. “I wrote for three hours today!” Set yourself goals: Two hours or five pages every day, whichever comes first.

The biggest secret of being a successful writer is simply doing it, BIC (butt in chair), day after day after day.

In the last few years, I’ve made some big changes in my life. I came into a new relationship, moved twice, retired from teaching. In those changes some of my routines fell away, not my writing routines because those are entrenched, but others. I used to sit down on the kitchen rug in front of the sink and groom my dogs every evening. It was precious bonding time for them and for me and kept them looking good. When my world shifted, though, when one of the dogs died, when it was suddenly a different kitchen and I didn’t want fur on that particular rug, the routine fell away. And I couldn’t seem to get back to the grooming except very occasionally out of fierce necessity. (Cavaliers need grooming!) At last, I searched and found a slot that I could commit to . . . in the morning, in the bathroom, just before my shower. A nice quiet time with just me and my dog, a time that works every day.

Dawn has never looked better.

Finding a routine with a dog is easier, of course, than finding one with your writing. Dogs love routine and will show up, expecting treats and attention. (Maybe the next generation of computers can learn to do that!) But whether it’s with grooming a dog or writing, the power of routine begins with finding a time that works for you, really works on every level possible. One that has as few built-in disadvantages as possible. And then you quit asking yourself whether you’re going to keep your commitment. You just do it.

BIC. It works.