Colleen Hoover doesn't keep a fixed schedule. She writes when the mood strikes, which can mean weeks of silence followed by marathon days at the keyboard. She built one of the best-selling careers in fiction that way.
No Schedule, No Word Count Goals
Plenty of bestselling authors preach writing every single day. Hoover built her career doing the opposite. She's said she doesn't set word count goals or deadlines, and she sits down to type only when she genuinely feels like it. Some weeks that means she writes nothing at all, and she's fine with that.
According to Elle, her pattern swings between extremes. She can go months without touching a manuscript, then write for a few weeks straight at 16 hours a day. She's described a similar on-and-off rhythm in her own interviews, where the shape of a writing day changes constantly.
Sometimes, I'll get up and write for an hour in the morning. Sometimes, I'll write five days straight. Sometimes I'll wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning and write.
Colleen Hoover, quoted in The Profile
Writer's block doesn't rattle her. She's said she can go months without writing a word and doesn't stress about it, because the drive always comes back. That freedom matters enough that, per Elle, she once signed a publishing contract where she refused an advance in case she wasn't in the mood to write the book. No advance meant no deadline hanging over her.
The through-line is that she refuses to let writing feel like an obligation. Deadlines and daily quotas are exactly the kind of pressure she avoids, because they drain the joy out of the work. She's described writing as the thing that has always given her the most joy, and the loose routine exists to protect that. Discipline, in her case, means guarding the fun.
How the Actual Writing Happens
When she does write, Hoover works in chunks of about 5,000 words, and she won't move forward until those words are exactly right. She's said she does a lot of editing while she writes rather than saving it all for later, so each section is polished before she pushes on. She also lets her mother and her best friend read scenes as she finishes them, because she doesn't like handing over raw drafts.
None of it is tidy. She's called herself a very disorganized person with no real balance, so the routine isn't a neat system you could copy line for line. It bends to whatever the current book needs. What stays constant is the editing loop and the refusal to write on command, and that combination has carried her through more than 20 novels.
Inspiration tends to hit her mid-conversation. She's admitted she has a hard time focusing on one thing at a time, so ideas often arrive while she's talking to someone and half-listening. The one steady ritual in her process is small and a little superstitious. In her own words, when she starts a new manuscript she has to put on a fresh pair of socks, and that's about the extent of it.
For the wider picture on how she works, see the full Colleen Hoover writing routine.
What You Can Steal
- Write when the energy is there. Hoover's bursts show that daily consistency isn't the only route to real output.
- Edit as you go. Polishing each chunk before moving on can hand you a far cleaner draft at the end.
- Drop the guilt about slow stretches. A gap doesn't mean you're finished. Her drive always returns.
- Keep one small ritual. A tiny cue, like fresh socks, can tell your brain it's time to work.