1
Lord, I’ve had so many writing routines. My writing day depends on my writing week, my writing week depends on my writing month. My writing month depends on my writing year, and my writing year depends on my writing life. In this life, right now, these days, my daily writing routine depends on whether it is a weekday or a weekend.
2
When it’s a weekday, I wake around 630am, and get ready to go to work at a 9am to 5pm office job. During these early get-ready hours I’ll sit at my desk and try to write a random line or two about my immediate sensory impressions (weather, traffic, birdsongs, etc.). It’s not really “poetry,” just a way to connect to the day and be attentive to the mysteries shimmering around me and within me.
3
When it’s a weekday I go to my office job and do no writing.
4
When it’s a weekday, after work, I’ll spend some time relaxing in the living room or backyard with a notebook and pen, or a laptop, some nearby poetry books around for inspiration. I’ll try to capture clear lines or images: sunlight on the wall, dust specks in the air, some gentle snowfall.
5
When it’s a weekday, the next weekday I do the same thing.
6
When it’s a weekday, the next weekday I do the same thing.
7
When it’s the weekend, I wake as early as I can and go for a walk. After the walk, I either sit at my desk, or on the couch, or in an indoor hammock, with a pen and notebook. I relax and write random lines, no agenda, just scribble whatever comes to mind in the moment.
8
When it’s the weekend, I look at those new random lines, and the earlier random lines I wrote during the week, and see if anything connects or clicks or sparks a little poetic fire. If a little poetic fire is lit, that’s it — I feel like my “immediate sensory impressions” are conversing with the universe, and I’m consumed. I keep writing at every possible moment to fuel the blaze.
9
When it’s the weekend, if nothing poetic connects at the time, I’ll put it aside, and work on another project, usually a prose project, and try to write 500 words of “something” to put gas in the tank. That “something” could be a dialogue exchange, or a new scene, or developing a new character.
10
When it’s the weekend, if the poetry isn’t hungry, the prose is fed. If the prose isn’t hungry, I catch up on daily tasks around the house, or respond to overdue emails, or revise existing work, tinkering here and there.
11
And always, along the way, weekday or weekend, I try to give a huge hug to my family and friends, for understanding, and accepting. Thank you. Everything in me says ‘Thank you!’ (Psalm 138:1-3).
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Then do it all over again.
13
Then do it all over again.
Jason Heroux
lives in Kingston, Ontario. His recent poetry collections include Like
a Trophy from the Sun (Guernica
Editions, 2024), Look Out, Yellow
Umbrella (above/ground press, 2026), and Unfinished Wilderness (Anvil Press, 2026).
