Writing Everyday isn’t the Answer
Success won’t come if burn yourself out
Let’s face it if you’re a writer then you’ve heard something all the time. The old idea of writing success that always seems to creep up:
“Write 2000 words a day, everyday to be successful”
It can apply for medium, your personal blog, or your prized personal novel. There are even big creative writing events like NaNoWriMo and it’s camp variants that encourage you to write practically everyday to meet a daily goal to try to reach the 50,000 to 75,000 words a month in hopes of finishing a novel in a month.
And of course there are people here on Medium that say you should write a story a day.
My response to that is YIKES. Does your brain hurt? Cause my brain hurts just thinking of that. I have yet to finish a NaNoWriMo where I actually write 50,000 words in a single month to complete my novels. Because life happens and this writer needs time to rest his mind.
Starting on Medium has pushed all of the “this is how you succeed on Medium content” my way. With the biggest trend in people’s advice being “write a story everyday”. Which if I were a machine may be easy but I am a human being. I need days off to think of other fresh ideas for content or just to decompress a little bit.
Writing a set amount everyday is far too stressful. The amount of anxiety that comes from making sure I push out a chapter in a Novel or a story in medium can be too daunting. My heart begins to race and my brain breaks down as I start to hate every single word that’s put on the page all in the pursuit of some arbitrary number that means nothing.
It makes me recall a professor I had who scoffed at other professors who wanted ten page papers written for a simple essay.
“If you have a one to two page essay that is great I want that everyday over some long essay that’s shit.” — A Great English Professor
I whole heartedly agree with these words in every piece of writing I make because the point is to communicate your message the best way possible. For some this could be writing everyday to hit an arbitrary number, but I see my writing take a nose dive when I try to write a certain amount.
This isn’t to say that if you want to get better at your craft don’t practice everyday. If you wish to improve your writing you should try to write as much as possible. You will only get better if you put more time into improving your craft.
However when you are simply writing to meet a numbers goal you face several down sides. The first as mentioned is you could be like me and have the quality of your writing take a nose dive. Or you may face an even worse outcome of beginning to dread writing all together.
As the anxiety of not reaching your daily goals builds up into a constant stress, so you continue to force yourself to write day after day. Even worse will be the anxiety and stress you feel as you wish you were doing something other than writing. Staring at the black sheet of paper becomes so agonizing that you avoid it entirely.
It’s healthy to take breaks. To make sure that you do other things in your life to keep that passion burning bright instead of getting burned out. Take time to relax, to decompress, so your writing comes straight from your heart. Whether that be a few hours, a day, or even a month.
Perhaps in that month you don’t spend writing you live an adventure that changes your perspective on life. Maybe you’ve been taking time to read other works instead of writing your own and you pick up insightful tips from it.
Take for example this past year of 2020; a year where the world came to a collective standstill. I personally began to reflect on what was really important to me. The year was lost due to the virus, and for many others on the West Coast — the horrible fires that brought ash filled skies into our lives for months. I had to reorganize what I wanted out of life:
Was the masters degree I’ve been preparing for what I really want for my life when this all goes back to “normal”? Will I continue to put off going to live in other countries? And most importantly, was I writing what I loved? Living through my days wondering “what-if” constantly, as I dream of publishing my own novels one day.
The answer was no for many of those. I was not following my own path but rather the path set out for me. I got so caught up simply trying to reach these artificial goals that I lost track of what was really important to me. If I needed time off I took it, because I wanted to make sure that writing will always be something I love. I would advise you do the same.
Take that burning flame of passion you have for writing and treat it as sacredly as the Olympic Torch is treated. Cherish your time writing.
