Ever feel like you're pushing uphill every time you sit down to write? You’re not alone — and you’re not broken. You may just be out of rhythm.

Each of us has a natural writing rhythm — a set of internal preferences that influence when we write best, how much we can write, and what pace feels most productive. When our writing schedule aligns with these rhythms, writing feels easier, more joyful, and more consistent.

When it doesn’t? Writing becomes a slog, even for the most disciplined among us.

Back in high school, I loved sports and was on the tennis team. I wanted to be in the best possible shape, but I hated running with a blind passion. Convinced that I needed to run to get buff, I made a New Year’s resolution to run every morning before school at 6am.

To be clear, I knew I hated running and I knew I hated getting up early, but I still tried to make myself run at 6am. You can probably guess how well it went. Yes, I ran exactly one time.

The moral of the story is that we often try to make ourselves do things we “should do” in ways that violate our own natural rhythms. When we do that, things go poorly and we can lose confidence, lose momentum, and get stuck.

On the flip side, when you align your efforts with your rhythms, life gets easier. When I was in graduate school I started running - but this time I did it in the afternoons when my body was ready to exert itself. That made a huge difference (I also learned along the way that I can't write at 6am either!).

In The Writing Rhythm Workbook, I break writing rhythm into four key types:

Daily Rhythm – When during the day your brain works best.

Weekly Rhythm – How your energy flows across the week.

Project Rhythm – Your ideal pace and number of active projects.

Life Rhythm – The big-picture seasonality of your writing life.

If you’re feeling stuck or frustrated, the solution may not be more willpower — it may be better alignment.

👉 Start here: Take 10 minutes today to reflect on one rhythm. Are you honoring it in your current writing practice? What’s one small change you could make to get back in sync?

📄 Bonus: If you want help identifying and aligning your rhythms, download the free Writer Rhythm Workbook here — it’s full of helpful prompts and exercises.

Thanks for the writing you do, and thanks for reading mine. I'll see you next Friday.

Happy writing,

Trevor