A shorter entry this week as I am recovering from a health scare late last week. I am feeling better, thank you, but have a fair number of unpleasant tests to get through to discover the root cause. (As an aside: pay attention to what your body and loved ones are telling you. You’ll live longer and happier.) The health scare, combined with a large time-sensitive project at work, means I have barely written any words. And that brings me to one of my pet peeves: the almost constant advice that you have to write every day. I don’t think you do.
Now, of course, no one who argues that you should write every day would argue that people should write from the emergency room (though, now that I say that, I bet I could find some who would). The argument, however, is that you should find some regular schedule and stick to it, that the only way to produce is to write every day. I don’t think that is necessarily good advice, and it certainly doesn’t work for me.
Writing is not a remunerative career for the vast majority of people who participate in it. If you want to do it full time, you need to be either independently wealthy, have a partner willing to support your efforts, or be one of the very few who make consistent advances and royalties large enough to live on. The rest of us have to have jobs. And that means fifty or sixty hours or more spent working, and more time spent on your family and trivial things like sleep. Writing every day is not always practical for most writers. And the idea that two hundred words is better than none doesn’t work for me. I find that if I only do a small amount of writing, the writing tends to be thrown out — I need, apparently, a little bit of runway to get into the flow.
Nor do I think it’s necessary to write every day to be productive. I have, in the last three years, written four novels to completion and the first draft of a movie-length script. Now, one could argue give that the title of these little missives is Failed Writer’s Journey that they all suck and therefore my advice is worthless. I don’t have much of an argument against that other than to say according to a lot of the write everyday people I should not have been able to produce that amount of competed work.
If writing every day works for you, then by all means write every day. My point is merely that if you are more like me, if you find your work better and more productive when you have the space to dedicate significant time to it, then go ahead and do that. As long as you find yourself finishing works in a timely manner, whatever path you choose is the right path.
Thus endeth the rant. A mild rant — doc said to reduce stress.
Weekly Word Count
Nothing of any significance. See not about health scare. I hope to begin a new project this coming weekend. I just have to choose. (Shall it be the Upper-Class Twit Detective and his Long-Suffering Assistant in Spaaaaaaaace? Or shall it be Fsck English Magic, the Luddites were Right historical fantasy? Or shall it be AI as Necromancy? Or shall it be Leverage meets Person of Interest? Ideas are easy, kids. Execution is hard.)
Have a great weekend.