How to write fiction living a writer’s life or what’s a writer’s lifestyle?

So you’ve decided to do it tough you have no idea how, where or when to start. Perhaps you have already started a manuscript or a first sketch (comic wise) and yet…it has never come around that writing is a lifestyle.

Eh? What the heck do lifestyles have to do with writing? Mr. Chuck Wendig says writing isn’t a lifestyle .. Aren’t there writers who used to think it’s all right to drink booze to inspire oneselves and those resigned to be a little…chubby cause you’ll be cooped up behind a desk all day?

Yep…but even that decision to torture yourself by staying immobile moving your hands only is a lifestyle. Why? Cause you’ll be deciding to do this or that and will be getting used to it. It means your rear on a chair. You see, there’s this author (Cathy Birch) who starts her book “The Creative Writer’s Workbook” with chapter one dealing on how important it is to have a lifestyle that helps to the act of writing.

Personally speaking I agree it is uberly important to keep fit the main tool we use for writing: our bodies. Whatever the problem you have, either wearing spectacles as thick as a telescope (mine can be used to peek at future), walk on wheels, not to move at all; a body is a very much needed container and weapon. Even if all you do is an indoor desk job not writing related.

Then, as to illustrate the argument, I’m to quote a little (in the original to Spanish translation blog entry I quote but here I’m going to ad lib). Writing is a physical deal…Yep, it is. Unless we live in the matrix, it is your body which sustains the damage of not being kind to yourself.

So what’s a lifestyle to begin with? According to the Oxford online dictionary it is: someone’s way of living; the things that a person or particular group of people usually do.

He doesn’t have a very healthy lifestyle.
She needs a pretty high income to support her lifestyle.
An alternative lifestyle.

Thus…deciding to write is a lifestyle after all. No matter how much your life is different to this or that routine, whatever you do to live is a lifestyle… Then here is the advices:

Keep your brain on edge. I mean, keep it active by changing activities and from time to time do something to challenge it. AND SLEEP for your brain sake.
Eat as well and as regularly as possible. I know writing can take away space time sensitivity but…. listen to your stomach grumbling!
Your eyes should be looked after as much as possible. Even if you’re blind, eyes can become infection gates if you don’t take care of yourself. Have them checked, use your refreshing tears and have them rest.
Exercise. It’s proven that exercising can boost your attention and productivity. Get up from the chair from time to time! Do your pre writing warm up, do your in between get up and stroll.
Find the time. Use the potty breaks if you have to but find the time to write. Start. Just write. Draw a schedule for yourself and stick to it as if you’re drowning. Nothing hurts more your writing than stop writing.

Is this incompatible with your actual lifestyle? Do you want to torture yourself?! I mean, stop moving at this moment anything but your fingers for about two hours……..be welcomed to maso land. It’s torture to do so. No matter what you decide, you’re about to get yourself a writer’s lifestyle since you’re to write.

Be kind to yourself.