DON'T write every day

Hi

I've been thinking about this a lot and thought I'd make a post about it. DON'T write every day.

Why not??!?!?!?! I hear you scream in despair. EVERYONE tells you to do it! Every writer tells us to write every day!

Yeah... but not me.

When I say I've been thinking about it a lot, I mean obsessively, compulsively. I've studied this stuff. I know my stuff. I've tried to write every day. I did. I swear. Every day, and in the beginning, it was fine, I got work done, it was fun. I wrote 5-10k a day and after a week or so I'd maybe take a day off... then continue writing 5-7k a day. That's most of the day. 9 AM to 11 PM. I did nothing but write and the occasional ten minutes of surfing funny pics online.

I did this for about a year.

Every day. Monday-Sunday with the occasional day off. (Good times, no day job, "studying" at university without going to lectures).

I then... was finished with 3 books and wrote the next... started editing the first... went to the next...

Skip forward.

I moved. I had all the time in the world still, but I couldn't focus on ANYTHING. Never mind for 12 hours like I used to.

Time passed (as it does).

I tried to at least write so and so many words a day. It worked somewhat.

BUT:

and here's the whole reason for this post.

It didn't work ALWAYS.

I get tired. I get demotivated. I realized that some stories just don't want to be written - or at least not by me. I try to force myself... at least 1k a day... at least 500 words a day. Can I do 100 words and say it's an achievement? But it's not. I can do 1.5k in 30 mins fairly easily. Yes, this sounds a lot like boasting, but once I'm into something, the writing flies, and time doesn't.

But it's no good. It's no good to force yourself.

So... why do you tell us this now? Why the sudden wisdom?

You've read last week's post? Yah. That's why. Trying to force myself to write every day (instead of when it was REALLY pressing and I had the STRONG URGE to write) made me burn out. It's done this quite a few times by now and I'm starting to see a pattern there.

So.

Don't write every day.

I know I won't. It makes me crazy. I'm fine taking a few weeks break's between projects... and at other times I'd rather write compulsively the whole day/a whole week/month than force myself to write during those 'down-times'. It's useless. All it does is make me hate ever having chosen to sit down/get up at 5 AM. And that's not an environment to write in.

If you don't want to write, don't. Take a break.

The writing, if it's meant for you, if it's your story to tell, and if you're truly a writer, will come to you. When it is ready. Not when you're trying to force it.

It helped me to realize this (although no doubt in a few week's time I'll be crying and whining about how much I suck again). I hope this helps anyone else too!

PS: don't think this is an easy process to decide. I've been bombarded with write every day for years... and I feel guilty if I don't. But for me, this just doesn't work. I can't force the writing, at least not if I want to be good, if I want it to be coherent. And to be honest, I have way too many ideas in my mind to edit a piece 20 times if it doesn't come out at least decent right away. No single idea is THAT important. And if you only have one idea? Then it's ok that you quit after you're done with it. I can guarantee another idea will show up at you door and knock you over. In time. It might not be tomorrow, or next week, and perhaps not even this year.

But in time, another idea will find you, and you'll catch fire, like you did with that first idea. That's when you write. When you NEED to write, or otherwise, you might die.

Cheers!