David Writes Horror for a Living. His Routine Is Surprisingly Calm.

A few weeks ago, I interviewed David McIlroy, a fiction author, strategy coach, and solopreneur from Northern Ireland. He writes horror novels (The Substitute, The Soulburn Talisman), runs three newsletters, hosts a podcast, and coaches creative entrepreneurs.

So I asked him the obvious question: how do you do all of this and stay grounded when there’s so much going on?

And he shared his systems with me.

For David, it’s all about having a simple, sustainable routine you can keep up for months and years without feeling overwhelmed. The key is to be as consistent as possible.

Having a structure really helps. For David, mornings are for writing. He writes fiction in the morning.

“The morning is when my brain is the most active… I’ve just woken up, had my coffee, the house is quietest. The start of the day is the best time to get your creative work done.”

And the afternoon is for other projects, like his coaching program.

As long as he stays within this structure, he doesn’t get overwhelmed. He also stops his work at a certain point in the day. In the evening, he blocks off work after a certain point and spends time with his wife and dogs. He tries to read in bed, even a few pages make a big difference.

Drinking coffee is very much a ritual for him. After breakfast, David makes coffee and has that quiet moment in the house before he actually dives into work.

“This time of year (summer) is nice because I can sit in the sunshine for a few minutes before I start.”

During the day he’ll have instant coffee, but the morning coffee cup is part of his cherished ritual. David likes to get some sun with his morning coffee, he finds it lifts both his mood and his creativity.

For David, mindfulness is as simple as doing the dishes. Basically, it comes down to giving himself some silence.

“Sounds silly, but it’s a chance to do something mindless. I find it (washing dishes) quite relaxing.” Turn off your screens, get away from the computer or the TV. Try to be somewhere with a bit of sunshine coming through a window.

I asked him what tips he’d give someone trying to cut down their screen time, because it’s genuinely hard. What has worked for him is keeping his phone in a different room. If it’s in the same room, it’s so much easier to pick up. If you have to get off your seat and walk to another part of the house, that’s a massive deterrent. He also has do-not-disturb turned on automatically at 11 pm, which shuts down all his apps.

David is deliberate about what he consumes.

“Reading good books, definitely. Watching well-written, well-made movies and TV shows helps too. I try to find something well-reviewed. I’m a big horror fan, so I’ll try to catch the newest horror movies, as long as they’re well-rated.”

David says that watching other stories and scenes helps him feed back into his own understanding of his writing. On the flip side, if you ingest a lot of low-quality stuff, your own output drops in quality too. So he tries to stick to high-quality sources.

When I asked David what the most important thing he does for self-care is, his answer was cooking.

“Weirdly, for me it’s cooking. I love to cook, love finding new recipes. If I want to relax on a bit of downtime, I’ll look up a new recipe and try to master it, then enjoy a really nice meal.”

And because I have a complicated relationship with cooking myself, I wanted to know what it is he likes about it. He says it’s the fact that it takes time and that you have to be patient and wait for it to be done. And there’s a lot of creativity in it. He roughly sticks to a recipe but also gives himself some leeway.

I find it so interesting that he compares cooking to writing. David says, “You’re testing things, seeing what feels good, and at the end it all comes together into a really nice meal, the same way you might end up writing a really nice book.”

A lot of David’s movement comes from his dogs.

“They force you to go out for a walk even when you don’t want to. I also go to the gym, play football, that sort of thing….But the dogs are a big part of it. They keep you on your toes.”

I asked him whether he thinks exercise helps him be more creative. “Yeah, I find the times I can’t get as much exercise, I feel more sluggish, physically, but mentally too”. For him, even something simple like a walk or getting away from your usual environment and getting your body moving helps.

I’m starting a collection project. I’m documenting the systems that keep people grounded, functional, and (mostly) sane.