On Writing Every Day

There is an interesting post making the rounds that talks about why the one most common piece of writing advice is wrong. That advice, of course, is that you must write every day. Since I have now written every day for 786 consecutive days, I have some thoughts on this topic.

1. Arbitrarily stating that a piece of advice is wrong falls into the same trap as the advice itself. Writing every day might be wrong for the author of the post. It might be wrong for many people. But it isn’t wrong for everyone. It depends on a range of factors from how you work, to available time, the pressure that writing every day puts on a person. For me, writing is practice. Like anything worth learning, I have to practice to get better at it. And for me, I do best when I fall into the habit of practicing every day. This is certainly not true for everyone, but to say that the advice “write every day” is wrong is a bit of overkill. It is wrong for some people. It is right for others.

2. Just because I write every day doesn’t mean you should. I hope it is clear from the posts that I’ve written on this in the past that I am writing from my experience. I go out of my way to avoid saying things like “you should…” or “you must…” Instead, I say things like, “This works for me because…” Every writer works differently. I write about my experience because someone else may find that experience helpful. But it took years of trial and error for me to find a methodology that worked for me. Mine happened to be writing every day.

3. A writer’s process comes in part from their circumstance. For the last several years, my circumstances are such that I don’t have a lot of time to write. I can find somewhere between 20 minutes and 40 minutes (on average) each day. That represents a page or two of writing for me. Some people have more time, some people have less. But my desire to write and to improve compels me to take advantage of that 20-40 minutes each day. The writing isn’t always good, but I gain from the consistency, and from the practice of learning to put words on the page in all kinds of circumstances. This works for me. It works for my circumstances.

4. What defines a writer is not how much they write. Writing every day does not make you more of a writer than writing less frequently. If that were the case, think of how many bestselling authors would fail to make the definition of a writer. Writing is one of those things that does’t require the blessing of some authority. If you write, you’re a writer. Period.