Write Every Day Part 2: Why Should You?
If you’ve heard any famous author talk about their process, nine times out of ten, they say they try to write something every day. But is this the only way to succeed? And why should you write every day?
Do You Want to Be a Writer?
If you wish to become a career writer, you need to sell books to sustain your lifestyle. Without being a mathematician, or a marketing guru, it’s evident that the more good quality books you publish, the more sales you get per day. If readers fall in love with a book, they are likely to read more of the same author’s work.
I found this to be true when I began my blog series back in 2009 and published my first novel in 2012. I just wish that I’d taken heed of the ‘Write Every Day’ ethos back then and produced the subsequent novels a lot sooner than I did! If you’d like to read more about my story, read this post.
Naturally, you don’t have to write every day. But if you want to be a writer, to make writing your profession, writing something every day is one strong route to achieving success.
Writing Is a Craft
Writing is a craft, just like woodworking. The more you write the better you become at it.
Becoming a better writer takes practice. Of course, you already do a lot of writing – emails, reports, messages – but writing a piece of fiction or nonfiction takes a little more longevity. You need to keep at it, and while you write about details in scenes and chapters, at the same time you need to keep the whole of the story or subject matter in your mind. This is why it’s so much more important to write often.
Practise makes your writing better. You’ll notice how your sentence structure improves, how you are able to write better descriptions and dialogue. Naturally, it’s important to keep on learning too, but in writing, it is the doing that makes you perfect.
Routine Feeds the Brain
Writing every day gives you a routine. There are a plethora of famous writers who attribute their success to the routine of writing every day.
WH Auden, the poet said,‘
Routine in a man, is a sign of intelligence. (https://jamesclear.com/daily-routines-writers)
The celebrated contemporary novelist, Haruki Murakami, says that he keeps to a routine every day without variation.
The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind. But to hold to such repetition for so long — six months to a year — requires a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.
Whereas the Russian novelist, author of War and Peace, Leo Tolstoi, said,
I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine.
Tolstoi worked in isolation — no one was allowed to enter his study, and the doors to the adjoining rooms were locked to ensure that he would not be interrupted. (Mayo Oshin for Mission.org)
The prolific thriller writer, Stephen King, writes six pages every day. He says,
I have my vitamin pill and my music, sit in the same seat, and the papers are all arranged in the same places…The cumulative purpose of doing these things the same way every day seems to be a way of saying to the mind, you’re going to be dreaming soon. (Mayo Oshin for Mission.org)
Clearer Vision
The more you write, the clearer your vision of your project, and even your life, becomes.
Taking long breaks between writing makes it difficult to remember what you had planned in the last session. You’ll end up reading more than writing and wasting most of the allocated writing time.
If you sit down for only an hour each day and set down a few words, you’ll have a clear picture of the story, or the topics you need to cover in your nonfiction title.
Writing also has an incredible ability to reach the deepest recesses of our minds. This is why writing a diary or a journal is often part of a mental health program. Writing increases mindfulness as it is a form of self-expression. Any creative outlet is generally considered good for your mental health, and writing, in particular, is excellent as it is a direct expression of our innermost thoughts.
Money Is Not a Dirty Word
Part of the success that comes from writing every day is financial prosperity.
Of course, most writers are not merely – or even at all – motivated by money. Still, we all have to eat, right? And if you, like me, want to be a full-me writer, you need to be able to make money from your writing.
Money is not a dirty word. The idea that writers should not have to think about such earthly matters as earnings, is hugely outmoded. Although, I’d argue that this idea has never really had any base in reality. Writers from Shakespeare and Dickens to Stephen King have always had to consider making a living.
Shakespeare was by all accounts an astute businessman, investing in property and a theater company. (Prospectmagazine.co.uk)
Dickens’ writing was influenced by the sudden poverty he was plunged into at the age of twelve when his father got into financial difficulty. The change in circumstances gave him what his biographer, Michael Slater, describes as a "deep personal and social outrage". He began writing A Christmas Carol when ‘He was in debt up to his eyeballs,” (New York Post 9 December 2017) and realized the holidays was a popular theme. Dickens might never have written his plea for charity if he hadn’t been desperate to make money.
More Books Doesn’t Always Mean More Sales
It’s important to consider money when thinking about writing as a career. The more books you’ve published the more you earn. But, I must give you a caveat. The books have to be of good, even excellent, quality.
A Christmas Carol is a masterpiece, even if it was born out of financial need. I know we can but dream that we’ll be the next Dickens, but what I’m trying to say is that even the masters of the craft produced their best work under financial pressures.
Your next book doesn’t have to be a classic that will be read for hundreds of years to come – although you never know if you don’t write the book. However, it has to be the very best work you can produce. Just pushing out below-par books will not automatically bring you success.
But, remember, the more you write, the better writer you become. So, for now, all you need to concentrate on is to set up a sustainable writing routine that ensures you produce a certain amount of words every day.
That’s it.
That’s the long and short of it.
Write Every Day
In the next post in this series, I’ll talk in more detail about why you may not be writing, and give you practical tips on how to establish a sustainable writing routine.
My book, WRITE EVERY DAY, which has more detailed advice and practical tips, will be out on 29 November. It’s now on preorder. You can find it here.
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