Do you write every single day?

[Lucian Hodoboc]

One of the pieces of advice I see thrown around often is to write every single day. No matter how busy your schedule is, aspiring writers should take some time every day to sit and write at least a few sentences. Do you think this is achievable for everyone? Do you write everyday and, if so, how much?

[JameelaM]

Hey Lucian,

Great question and an excellent topic to bring up. I myself write everyday though most of my writing is for to do lists and random ideas that pop into my head as I go thru my days

The concept behind writing every day has to do with training your brain and creating consistency so that you form a new habit of writing every day...however it is a bit of a flawed system and we have to take into consideration how our brains actually work, which in most cases is geared towards failure or to prove our beliefs that we CAN'T write every day are true.

This article explains it far better than I can in this moment.

The short of it is that if you're not a professional writer, as in someone is paying you to write and you have deadlines lingering etc, then it's better to write during the times you can or are able to, when that is would be dependent on your schedule and time availability.

I think a better question to ask yourself is what are you trying to accomplish, are you writing a novel and want to complete it this year? If so how many chapters would you need to write each day or week to achieve that goal, then use that to determine the amount of time and how much writing you need to do each day.

Hopefully the information helps!

[landmersm]

No. Attempting to do it every day while working 50+ hours a week - not to mention kids!!!! - is a bit much.

I try to do at least 5 days a week, and I try to do something. Anything. Write. Edit. Read. Re-read. As long as it's related to my own work, I figure I'm doing something productive.

Now, if any of you want to pay me to write, I'll happily do it full time!

[DGSquared]

Try for 250 words a day. It will go quickly.


You're not a writer if you don't write.


If you get out of practice, you'll notice the difference in your writing. The more you write, more your writing will improve, just like anything else.




All the best.


Have a bountiful day.
~Deb

[HPvD]

I usually have a lot of daily writing,

Not that I am constantly writing on big novels or feature articles or aiming for specific word counts or something like that, it's more like writing notes, ideas concepts, writing emails, tweets, blog posts etc.

The great thing with the - Blog post - in particular is that you can also see the amount of views,
to get an idea about what blog posts you like. Especially when you also
write your comments & replies it makes me feel a little more confident
that I might actually have some blog posts that provide you with
some sort of value.


   

[trainer]

I try to write as much as possible, but not everyday. I do, however, read everyday, which I find terribly rewarding.

I also think there isn't a one-answer-fits-all option here. For some, writing everyday is essential; for others it's excruciating, yet necessary; for yet others it's both enjoyable and necessary. For some, there is just no need to write everyday, as long as what one writes rings true.

[EliTaffJr]

I try to write every day, and some days I can blast out a couple hundred words in a few free hours, and other days my full-time job and my full-time marriage cuts my writing time down to lunch breaks and ten minutes before bed when I’m too tired to write anything coherent, anyway.

How I’ve dealt with it is this: ANY Akins of writing that I do is better than no writing st all. If I’m not able to work on my manuscript, I’ll log into Twitter and see what writing prompt threads are posting (I really like #vss365, they are a terrific community of supportive writers). Just having a word prompt with no other expectation allows me to mentally cleanse my palette and write something, even if it’s rubbish.

The important thing is that it engages my brain and keeps me working (my fingers are typing, my brain is formulating a combination of words in a specific order, etc.? So e en if I’m not writing something for my current project, I can at least engage that creative part of my brain that makes me a writer.

It’s like reviving your engine. You don’t expect to get anywhere, but it’s always useful to fire up the motor and practice going through the motions. Once, I had no phone and a ten minute break with nothing to do. I took out a pen and a napkin and started brainstorming names for my next heroes and villains.

As long as you keep writing, everything you do will help get you to the finish line.

[HPvD]

As I wrote in a previous reply some of
my daily writing is about note taking.

For what Journal writing and note taking is concerned, I have several Special Design
notebooks for different types of notes. I even created graphic designs
for special types of notebooks myself.

Food & Recipe notebooks with on it different types of food for culinary notes, I have a Funny Talking Parrot notebook that you could use for writing speeches, I also made several Travel Notebooks with on it several countries and travel destinations, and one with a photo of a little table near a beach with a fresh drink and sunglasses on the table, that has a real vacation feel to it.

For Music related notes one with a cartoon figure behind a drumset, and cartoon-style lettering saying: 'I Love Music', For Writing related notes also one with the text 'I Am Inspired' on it with a cartoon style Lightbulb on it.

I also frequently write messages on one of our own self designed Post- and Greeting- Cards, for things like Birth Days, and other Occasions, as a Real Card
with a stamp on it, or send as an E-Card. 

[HPvD]

........,

I also frequently write messages on one of our own self designed Post- and Greeting- Cards, for things like Birth Days, and other Occasions, as a Real Card
with a stamp on it, or send as an E-Card.

As I wrote about in a previous reply, I usually do write every single day.

I also have Nature Inspired Twitter-Serials, with Nature Photography that
requires writing little explaining texts, and several other
types of writing that I wrote about in previous replies.

While things like short Birthday Card Messages, and short
Twitter texts usually isn't large volume writing, everything
combined does frequently train my 'Writing Muscles'

 

[JannickStAlice]

You'll spend more time editing than writing anyway. So, I would personally say no.

What I think is more important is capturing ideas while you have them. If you're paying attention, they can hit you whenever. Keep a phone or notebook + pen near you as much as possible.

Sort through, find the ones most useful to you, and jot them down. Write these ideas in full when you are in a good mental space to write them. Otherwise, you'll strain and exhaust these ideas. You want to do them justice.

When you're done with that, you'll have the real fun of reading through them and editing them over and over again.

[chidiwhite]

Of cos I have found this idea very useful and a perfect way to train oneself as a writer

[AndrewSchulz]

I would say both yes and no. It depends on whether or not I’m in the writing phase. Right now, I’m in the self-promotion phase and had been editing for 3 months before that. (Although, I think editing should count as writing.)

I say yes because, when I’m in a writing phase, I do write every day. Mine is a non-traditional story in that I’m writing and releasing the novel in a serialized format. (I release a 700-900 bite-sized read every M-F.) Because of that, when I’m in the writing phase, yes, I write a 700-900 word chapter every Mon-Fri and spend Sat and Sun doing editing them.

I’m blessed right now to have plenty of free time though. Even with that, in can be difficult some days to get the full 700-900 words complete and I only get out maybe 300-400. Other days, when it’s flowing well, I may do two chapters at once.

Many people don’t have the freedom to write every day so I wouldn’t beat yourself up over not being able to do so. I know that some writers find it helpful though, even if all they write for the day is a haiku.

Happy Writing!

[An Albatross Man]

I don't write every day--but I do EDIT every day. That is to say, I pick something specific scene or chapter in one of my five unpublished manuscripts, I read it over, and I spend at least a few minutes trying to make it better.  If I'm feeling particularly tired or demoralized, I choose a part that I think is very good and doesn't need much work--and I enjoy it for entertainment value while scrutinizing the text for stupid typos or punctuation faux-pas.

Straight up writing new material is a bigger deal, which I need more time and head-space than is always available to me with a busy job, work-related travel, a family, and an addiction to old cars. I plan those active writing periods like everything else in my life, set aside the time and resources and commit.  Doing the daily maintenance of re-writing though ensures that when I set down to start on a clean-sheet, my head is in the game right from the start. 

That's just me though.

Vin,
The Albatross Man

[Stayce]

I think it depends on what you mean by ‘writing’. As many people here have already said, that if you have a lot of other life commitments (kids, family, full time job etc) actually sitting down to create something entirely fresh can be a challenge to do every day. I really struggle with this as I find I need to be in a very clear headspace and have a long stretch of available time to be able to push ahead with my projects.

Like others have said, I find revisiting, editing and polishing previous material is a better way to spend my time if I only have a little time to devote to my writing each day. My prose has a tendency to run on, so going back and taking a hatchet to it is always a worthwhile endeavor as far as I’m concerned.

I also find the old chestnut of getting some physical exercise to be a useful tool in shaping the times I actually do get to sit down and really work on something. I have too young daughters, so the only time to get a bit of exercise in that doesn’t involve chasing them around the local parks is to go for late walks. These have become my brainstorming times. I tend to develop character dialogue and map out scenes in my head so that I have a plan for when I actually get to put pen to paper. This is a god send for me as I find starting from complete scratch with only a vague idea of what I want to do exceedingly difficult.

[mcc1789]

I have tried to do this while working on a book. At first it was a page per day, then five. It's difficult to keep up, as you'd probably except. For some time I managed though. I got this advice as well, from Lawrence Watt-Evans, a writer whose books I've enjoyed. He didn't specify length though, but to impose a quota of words to write each day. Of course, what I said above only applies to my fiction writing. On various forums and so on I do write every day (briefly in comparison with fiction). I think for me when I'm writing a book this is likely the best way to go. That may not be the case for everyone however. Five pages a day can also be difficult-we don't all have the same amount of free time, after all. With me that mainly was to finish a book in under a year, which I'm glad worked.