Want to Write More in 2025 But Scared to Start?

How I Used a Distraction Diary to Rebuild My Writing Muscles

Does writing ever feel scary to you?

My whole life, my answer has been an assured no. I love to write. The physical experience of it brings me joy. I’ve never approached the page with fear the words might bite me, or worse, that they might not come out to play at all.

Until recently.

In September 2023, my first novel, Mother-Daughter Murder Night, was published. It was a hit, which meant I spent the first half of 2024 touring and meeting lovely readers. The experience was amazing for me and for that book… but not so amazing for the next book I was writing. Then, just when things started to calm down, I had an emotional rollercoaster of a summer. My dad died. My mom’s partner died. My dog died. I spent the last few months of 2024 bouncing between loving, grieving, and seizing joy where I could find it. This didn’t leave much time for writing, especially the kind of focused, intense work of inventing a fictional world.

For me, writing a novel requires dedicated time—big meaty chunks of it—day after day. In 2024, those chunks were fractured and squeezed into narrow slots on a crowded shelf of book promotion, family caregiving, and outdoor adventures to recharge.

When I sat down to dive back into my manuscript-in-progress late in the year, I felt fragmented. Distracted. Unsure if I could get into flow. I did the basics: turned off my phone, put my computer on “do not disturb,” closed all internet tabs. But I wasn’t sure it was enough. I felt myself fearing the page instead of craving it. I was scared I might not find the flow and richness I’d enjoyed there before.

So I decided to try something new. I kept a distraction diary.

Here’s what that meant:

• When I sat down to write (on my computer), I also opened a physical notebook and jotted down the time.

• Every time I found myself getting distracted or exiting the manuscript draft, I noted it. I jotted down the time, what I felt, and what I chose to do with that feeling. I wrote things like “9:32am - feeling wander-y urge to look at phone, standing up but then getting back to it” or “10:12am - stuck on a plot problem, going to put in the laundry and think about it”

• I also noted every time I came back to writing.

• At the end of the writing session, I spent a few minutes reflecting at the bottom of the notebook page.

While it may sound like I invented yet another distraction to keep me from writing, I found it helpful. I started this diary as a tool for accountability, but it became a valuable tool for learning too.

Here are some ways the distraction diary helped me:

• It kept me accountable to my goals and intentions. Even if no one but me will see it, I don’t want to embarrass myself by jotting down “checked email” in ink too often.

• It helped me identify patterns regarding what makes me itch to take a break. Sometimes I stop writing because of physical urges—the need to pee or move my body. Some are about the work itself—when I hit a plot wall or a section starts going off-course. Most of these itches seem reasonable to me. It was heartening to realize I rarely want to stop writing because of an errant desire to check my email or texts.

• It helped me experiment with different kinds of breaks. For example, I used to have a theory that when I hit a rough plot moment, I should buckle up and power through. But now, I’ve observed that taking 10 minutes to stretch or walk often helps me come back with a solution to the problem on the page.

• It helped me experiment with how I start a writing session, and what pre-writing actions make it easier or harder to get started. No huge shockers here—doing a bit of research or quiet stretching is better than checking email—but still, it’s good to actually note it and set intentions for how I'll start the next time I sit down to write.

After a couple days with my distraction diary, I felt my writing muscles getting stronger. After a couple weeks, I stopped calling it a distraction diary and started calling it a WRITING / NOT-WRITING DIARY. The diary helped me reacquaint myself with the process that enables flow and connection with my work—a process involves work and rest, writing and pause.

After a couple months, I put the diary away. Not forever, I suspect. I still look at it with gratitude on my shelf. Just knowing it’s there when I need it again is helpful. It continues to support me as I rebuild my writing muscles and once again find pleasure and satisfaction—along with a healthy dose of challenge—in the work of writing a novel.

This technique is simple. And it really helped me. I’m curious, in this distraction-full world: what tools are you using to tap into precious flow in the work you love? Is there something you do that frees you to go deeper? I’d love to hear about it.

May 2025 be a year of deep intention and attention.

Love, Nina

p.s. if this attention and distraction is a topic of particular interest to you, I HIGHLY recommend the book How to Do Nothing by Jenny O’Dell. It’s a humane, brilliant meditation on reclaiming our attention from capitalism.