G. Wulfing's pre-writing ritual

Part of the difficulty in writing is getting my mind to think about writing instead of all the mundane things it thinks it should be thinking about, and the frivolous things it would like to think about. If I have set aside an hour for writing, on some days it can take an hour to get my mind into the zone for writing, so that as I finally begin to write, I have to stop. Or it may take half an hour, in which case just as I start to get some real writing momentum going, I have to stop. Having a pre-writing ritual, as detailed below, helps enormously.

• Make a hot drink – masala chai latte, hot chocolate, or mochaccino
• Wake computer from sleep
• Light candle on desk beside computer (the soft, pure, soothing, romantic light somehow magically helps me to focus)
• Sip drink slowly
• Listen to a song, which may or may not be relevant to the manuscript I am currently working on, but either way gives my brain a few minutes in which to drift before I ask it to focus 
• Choose which manuscript to work on and open it
• Turn on rain noises
• Then – only then – start writing.

This routine helps my brain to leave behind the mundane thoughts of food and other duties, and to shift into writing-only mode. 
The rain sounds give my fidgeting brain a constant noise that cues it to focus but at the same time gives it something to get distracted to: like a tether, the rain sounds keep my brain from wandering too far into other thoughts. If I write in silence, my brain tends to wander off toward every frivolous little thought that slides past it. When in the past I have written to music, my brain tended to get distracted by the music: after all, listening to music is so much easier than writing! Thus, the rain soundtrack keeps my brain distracted enough from the silence that it can focus, but not so distracted that it abandons writing altogether.
Having said that, I did manage recently to drop the entire box of matches into my mochaccino as I was trying to light the candle, so this ritual is not without its hazards. (No matches were harmed, and the box is merely slightly coffee-tinted.)

Incidentally, because the world is currently even more awful than usual, Raymond's Nemesis and Raymond's Secret are currently free in Smashwords' 'Authors Give Back' sale, so you can read and/or download all three Raymond books for nothing. Link here.
Keep calm and stay home. And read all those books you've always wanted to read. We don't get to choose how horrendous the world is, but we do get to choose how we respond to it.