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One of the most toxic pieces of writing “advice” I have ever gotten, bar none, is “real writers write every day!”
And yet I see it touted constantly by writers and those who support writers, often bringing up the example of “Steven King writes 8 hours every day!”
Here’s my counter-advice to anyone and everyone who has heard this “real writers write every day” crap.
It’s a lie. It’s an absolute, outright lie, to say someone can write every single day without fail. Even the people who do it professionally take breaks. Even the people whose entire livelihoods are based on the written word will take time out and just relax. And that’s not even bringing up writer’s block or anything similar to it, or just feeling like you don’t want to write today.
That’s all okay. I’ve spent weeks not writing before getting back to it, I’ve dropped projects and started them months later under new names, I’ve done all manner of things that so flagrantly fly in the face of the statement “real writers write every day” that frankly, for a long time, I started to think I wasn’t a real writer.
But that’s bullshit. You can take a break for any reason. Depression, work, illness, and and so forth may actively stop you from writing. You could spend time with your loved ones, or playing video games, or cuddling a dog, or going out to a bar, and choose to not write. That doesn’t make you a fake writer, it just makes you a human.
“Real writers write every day” is, and always will be, a lie. Don’t fall for it.
A writer has to write, yes, and often too. But there is no universal law that you have to do it every day. There is more to life than staring at words on a screen. As Daniel Jose Older has said:
“Writing begins with forgiveness. Let go of the shame about how long it’s been since you last wrote, the clenching fear that you’re not a good enough writer, the doubts over whether or not you can get it done. Sure, the nagging demons will come creeping back, but set them aside anyway, and then set them aside again when they do.”
‘You must write everyday to be a writer,’ is up there with ‘you have to read everything in order to be a good writer,’ on my list of bogus writing advice.
Some writers do write everyday, but that’s only because that’s the method that works for them. It’s called the “No Zero Days” or “Don’t Break The Chain” method of building up habits and inertia. Saying that somebody is only a real writer if they do that is completely missing the message in the method. Find a system that works for you, and fuck anybody who tells you otherwise.
Having said that, if you find a subject, story, or idea that inspires / enrages you so much that you DO end up writing every day, good for you!
I always found that advice really discouraging until I realized it was bullshit. It can be good to push myself to write regularly for a limited span of time. (Two weeks maximum tbh.)
But BURNOUT IS A THING. I think there are people out there who do well writing every day. The rest of us would just start to hate writing, because not many people can keep enjoying something or giving it their all if they make themselves do it every. Friggin’. Day.
Sometimes I’ve even forced myself to take a break from writing so I can have a chance to crave the experience of writing. That craving can be super inspiring (Nowadays I’m so busy that life imposes those breaks against my will.)
Random side note: I also used to write with word count goals, and that was really useful for a while. But at some point I discovered that if I shift gears to outlining in the gaps when I have writer’s block, that turns back into writing pretty organically. Then I didn’t need to push myself much to write.
After that, word count quotas kinda’ became a logistically nightmarish solution to a problem I no longer had. There are other types of discipline that can be useful if I have time for them: Getting to a certain point in the story, sitting down to write for a set amount of time, doing warm-up writing exercises, or completing the next scene/chapter for my beta readers.
Anyway the point is do what works for you.
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