This is the first post in my ABCs of Writing series: Post A
365. The number of days in a year. And the number of days I sat down and wrote last year. It was hard. Most days, writing was the very last thing I wanted to do. Many days, all I managed to squeeze out was a paragraph or two. But I made sure to put down those fifty words because every little bit helps.
All those words eventually added up to a novel, the third one I’ve written. None published yet, but my querying journey is another story for another post. Writing every day, even a paragraph or two helped me finish this novel in a third of the time it took me to complete my first novel (which took a whopping six years to complete—in my defense, that first draft was 265,000 words long). If you’re curious about that novel, you can find the first chapter here.
At the end of the year, I was thrilled. Heck, at this rate, I might be able to finish the next novel in a couple of months. Then I learned how quickly habits can be broken. My motivation took a hit, along with the rest of the world, when 2020 arrived and I found myself in lock-down, under stay-at-home orders. At first, I thought that with nowhere to go and nothing to do I would really make some progress. Instead, my writing stagnated along with the never-ending same old sights, sounds, and smells of my apartment. It took me several months before I realized I was in a writing funk and I had to figure out how to force myself out of it.
I’ve seen dozens of articles espousing the importance of a daily writing habit. It’s not a novel idea, but it’s so hard to put into practice. So, my piece of advice is a bit more practical, and is the only thing that has helped me claw my way back to a semblance of that daily habit: Hold yourself accountable for writing every day. Track which days you write and which days you don’t.
Hold yourself accountable for writing every day.
I track my writing with an app called—wait for it—Habits. So creative. But it works, and I get a pleasant sense of satisfaction at the end of each writing session when I open the app and make a check mark for the day. The app stores my statistics and even converts them into fun graphs that catalog my writing streaks, making it very clear when I’m on a roll and when I’m not.
There have been many days where I’ve been tempted to skip and take a break. But then I look at my streak number and think, I can’t ruin that. So I force myself to sit down and spit out a handful of words. Some days, that handful turns into pages, and I don’t want to stop. Other days, I only write a few sentences before calling it quits. Either way, the words add up.
For me, writing every day isn’t just about being productive and hitting word counts. It’s about keeping my brain working. If I’m drafting a novel, writing daily keeps me from forgetting what’s going on in the story. I can dive right in rather than going back and re-reading what I wrote several weeks or months earlier; I wrote yesterday, so the story line is always fresh in my mind. If I’m not actively working on a novel, writing short stories or sketches every day keeps my creative juices flowing, keeps my writing muscles strong.
What if you feel like you have nothing to say? Nothing interesting to write about? I’m glad you asked! That will be a subject for my next post: Brainstorming: When Your Brain Isn’t Cooperating.
THE QUILL & THE INKPOT 