People make all
kinds of unnecessary, throw-away comments that stick with us throughout our
lives. Some are easy to forget, and some of them we carry around for years,
maybe even subconsciously, until they come back in full fury to harass us over
and over again. Usually late at night. Lying awake in the dark. Alone.
One of the most
damaging remarks ever made to me professionally happened over lunch during an
informational interview. I was deeply immersed in my post-graduate job hunt and
was also quickly becoming disenchanted with the mythically “valuable”
practice of talking to people who pretend to know what you need to do to get a job. But, sitting in a quirky airport restaurant, eating
one of the tastiest salads of my life, I was beginning to enjoy myself. That
is, until the marketing guru I was speaking with asked me,
“Do you write every day?”
I answered honestly:
no, I don’t. At that time in my life I didn't really have the time to—he
quickly interrupted my next sentence with one of the most damning phrases I've
ever heard directed at me.
“Can you really call
yourself a writer, then?”
I was,
understandably, flabbergasted. That he could so confidently cast doubt on my
identification as a writer simply based on the fact that I did not sit down
every day with the strict purpose of writing creatively was beyond my grasp. I
stuttered through a response and put it under my hat, as it were, until I was
safely driving away from the restaurant.
First I was
depressed (maybe he’s right?) and then I was angry (of course he’s not right,
the jerk!!). I oscillated between the two frequently, and even though I no
longer place any weight with what he said, it bothered me for a long time.
There are many, many
wise people in the world who say that writing every day is important. If you
read enough essays from well-established authors, you will find that many of
them embrace this technique and laud it as a successful way to build your
career.
But, for those of us
who just cannot make such a
commitment as writing every day, the assertion that the only real writers are those who make a daily
effort is both discouraging and counterproductive.
Professional writers
would be expected to write every day. If you wake up in the morning and the
only thing on your plate is to sit down and write and that’s the way you make
your living, then by golly you had better write every day!
Nevertheless, there
is no rule book in the world of writing that says you have to write every day
to be accomplished. Frankly there’s no rule that says you have to write every
day just to be published. And if you
spend most of the hours of your day as it is doing something other than
writing, it can be extremely hard to set down the time on a consistent basis to
put pen to paper.
The failure to do so can then be a burden on your motivation. And round and round we go.
I will say it a
hundred times on this blog that there is no one way to write well. Everyone has
their own techniques, their own methods of discipline and reward. If you find
that you write best when you’re hanging upside down and dictating to a computer
program at three in the morning, then no one can tell you you’re doing it
wrong. Do what gets you the results you want!
If that means
writing every day, great. If that means writing as much as you can, sometimes
even only a couple times a week, awesome. The point is, after all, to write,
not agonize about what Billy-Bob in the desk next to you is doing. You shouldn't
care that his picture book is all colored carefully inside the lines if what
you really like doing is scribbling modernist geometric shapes in yours.
Bad analogy.
If you want to read
further into the concrete reasons why pushing yourself to write every day might
be a really bad technique, take a look at “‘Write Every Day’ is Bad Advice: Hacking the Psychology of Big Projects” from the Cal Newport Study Hacks Blog. While ‘every day’ may be a soul-crushing schedule
to keep, it doesn't mean you can’t find more manageable goals to work towards.
Just find the routine that suits your needs.
It’s then up to you
to stick to it!
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