The real secret to writing every day
(I know you already want to know what the secret is, you impatient reader!
But let’s make a deal: you can scroll to the end of this article and read what my secret is, but in exchange you’ll have to clap this article! Deal? Deal!)
We all have either heard it or read it: to be a real writer, you need to read a lot and write every day. No excuses.
However, I always had thousands of excuses:
I’m too busy to find the time to write.
I’m too tired to do something that requires brain power.
I’m too afraid of writing, because what I’ll write won’t be good enough.
My English is not perfect, I will never be a good enough writer.
And the list goes on and on.
Procrastination, don’t we all know it?
Until, my Eureka moment arrived.
Just 10 days ago, CampNaNoWriMo was about to start. For those of you who don’t know what that is, the “Camp” is a smaller version of the NaNoWriMo online project (The acronym stands for “National Novel Writing Month, which comes every November.)
During this lighter version, instead of having the fixed “50.000 words in 30 days goal”, writers can pick their own goal.
I will admit, right here right now, that I have never managed to finish one of these projects. I would fail at the 1667 words/day goal in just 72 hours.
I have never been a daily writer and I blamed my failure to that. I thought it was not the right project for the kind of writer I was.
This year, though, CampNaNoWriMo seemed the perfect occasion to prove myself wrong. I want to be the kind of writer who writes every day, I want to continue writing and finish my novel.
So, I logged into their website and created my project. When I had to set my 30-day goal, that’s when I had my Eureka moment. I will write the bare minimum, whatever amount of words I know I can write daily.
Project goal: 15.000 words in 30 days — 500 words a day.
As per today, 10th July, I have written exactly 5000 words.
Will I be done with the draft of this novel by 1st August? No, definitely not. But this project is not about finishing a novel, is about establishing a habit.
So here’s my big secret: Set yourself a low daily goal!
You won’t be any less of a writer if you don’t write thousands of words every day, and with a low goal, you will hardly fail it, but always have the possibility to write more if you feel like it!
I had always set myself impossible goals, which seemed too much to reach once the moment to work on them arrived.
Today, I will write a whole chapter. Tomorrow, I will write for 5 hours straight.
I was putting too much pressure on myself and this was taking the passion out of my relationship with writing.
It’s easy to feel a failure when setting huge goals and being afraid of not reaching them. We should all know our limits. I know I can work with 500 words a day.
And yes, I know it’s only been 10 days, but these have been the first 10 consistent days I’ve had in the 10 years I’ve been writing and I can feel a big change.
Remember: us writers, we are all different. We have different lives and different paths. Some have the time, the energy, and the mental state to write 5000 words a day; others don’t. None of us is better or worse of a writer based on our daily word count.
