Day 4 of the #BAWritingLife challenge by Bethany Atazadeh is to say what rituals/habits get you “In The Zone” or the mood to write.

An important part of my journey to writing — especially in the end stages towards the PUBLISH button — was to set the lock screen & background on my phone to the book cover. I did it with Book 1 (left) and recently changed it to Book 2 (right)! So now I’ve got my book boyfriend to look at all day! ?

I look at my phone constantly — and every time I see it, I am reminded to WRITE! ?

To get me in the mood to write, I also try to get in the heads of my characters. I’ve created a Hart & Cole board on IStock, where I save photos that *could* be my characters (the way I picture them). This helps me with descriptions.

It works both ways — sometimes I have an idea of my character and then spot the person who matches it, or sometimes I use the person I find to create or elaborate on the character I’m describing. Sometimes I also search through to find random photos I can use to inspire a scene!

So that’s a little bit of my behind-the-scenes process to get “In The Zone”! What about you guys?