One of the most toxic pieces of writing “advice” I have ever gotten, bar none, is “real writers write every day!”
And yet I see it touted constantly by writers and those who support writers, often bringing up the example of “Steven King writes 8 hours every day!”
Here’s my counter-advice to anyone and everyone who has heard this “real writers write every day” crap.
It’s a lie. It’s an absolute, outright lie, to say someone can write every single day without fail. Even the people who do it professionally take breaks. Even the people whose entire livelihoods are based on the written word will take time out and just relax. And that’s not even bringing up writer’s block or anything similar to it, or just feeling like you don’t want to write today.
That’s all okay. I’ve spent weeks not writing before getting back to it, I’ve dropped projects and started them months later under new names, I’ve done all manner of things that so flagrantly fly in the face of the statement “real writers write every day” that frankly, for a long time, I started to think I wasn’t a real writer.
But that’s bullshit. You can take a break for any reason. Depression, work, illness, and and so forth may actively stop you from writing. You could spend time with your loved ones, or playing video games, or cuddling a dog, or going out to a bar, and choose to not write. That doesn’t make you a fake writer, it just makes you a human.
“Real writers write every day” is, and always will be, a lie. Don’t fall for it.
A writer has to write, yes, and often too. But there is no universal law that you have to do it every day. There is more to life than staring at words on a screen. As Daniel Jose Older has said:
“Writing begins with forgiveness. Let go of the shame about how long it’s been since you last wrote, the clenching fear that you’re not a good enough writer, the doubts over whether or not you can get it done. Sure, the nagging demons will come creeping back, but set them aside anyway, and then set them aside again when they do.”
‘You must write everyday to be a writer,’ is up there with ‘you have to read everything in order to be a good writer,’ on my list of bogus writing advice.
Some writers do write everyday, but that’s only because that’s the method that works for them. It’s called the “No Zero Days” or “Don’t Break The Chain” method of building up habits and inertia. Saying that somebody is only a real writer if they do that is completely missing the message in the method. Find a system that works for you, and fuck anybody who tells you otherwise.
Having said that, if you find a subject, story, or idea that inspires / enrages you so much that you DO end up writing every day, good for you!
I always found that advice really discouraging until I realized it was bullshit. It can be good to push myself to write regularly for a limited span of time. (Two weeks maximum tbh.)
But BURNOUT IS A THING. I think there are people out there who do well writing every day. The rest of us would just start to hate writing, because not many people can keep enjoying something or giving it their all if they make themselves do it every. Friggin’. Day.
Sometimes I’ve even forced myself to take a break from writing so I can have a chance to crave the experience of writing. That craving can be super inspiring (Nowadays I’m so busy that life imposes those breaks against my will.)
Random side note: I also used to write with word count goals, and that was really useful for a while. But at some point I discovered that if I shift gears to outlining in the gaps when I have writer’s block, that turns back into writing pretty organically. Then I didn’t need to push myself much to write.
After that, word count quotas kinda’ became a logistically nightmarish solution to a problem I no longer had. There are other types of discipline that can be useful if I have time for them: Getting to a certain point in the story, sitting down to write for a set amount of time, doing warm-up writing exercises, or completing the next scene/chapter for my beta readers.
I can understand a family having two cars. Two or more adults needing to get to work or do their own thing….but why did rich fucks get 10+ cars that’ll never leave a garage? They’re literally bragging rights, no actual use. I don’t care if they’re classics or something, they’re tools that many families desperately need.
Or like, you’re rich so you get a yacht. Ok. I think that’s over the top but ok, you wanted a nice ass boat. But….2? 3? 4? 10? Why? What use are they but sitting there and being bragging rights?
Everyone needs shelter. Rich people having a home makes sense. Two I think is greedy, but whatever devils advocate summer and winter homes whatever. But why the fuck does the richest man on earth have over 30 homes? Once again, that’s bragging rights and greed. There’s no fucking use for that.
I get collecting shit, we all have stuff we like to collect. But I think there’s a sheer difference between collecting kamen rider merch and collecting tools that are necessary to life that serve no use to you.
go off op i love this
or rent them to people so they dont collect dust and actually do something useful
Exactly.
I don’t have a problem with people having stuff. I have a problem with them wasting stuff and not putting it to use.
For example, a lot of college presidents are put up in very big, fancy houses by the university. But these homes serve a purpose, they’re not just for the president and their family, they usually have a very big space on the ground floor that is made for entertaining people, and part of the present’s job is to schmooze with people at large receptions and events, many of which are hosted in their house.
I’ve known families who own beach houses and are very generous about letting people use them. They’ll be like, hey, do you want to come down to the beach? No one is in the house in October, if you have a free weekend in October I know it’s cool but come to the beach, it’s fun. And like, families have rented out their beach houses to church retreats or retreats for other organizations to give them a free or very cheap space.
I know families with really big houses and when the kids start moving out and they have all this empty space, they’re like, oh no, this teenager in our community lost their parents in a sudden accident, let’s adopt them. This young married couple is without a place to live for a few months? No big deal, we have an extra room we can give them and they can live with us in the meanwhile. Let’s host an exchange student.
These things, besides helping people, also lead to a more efficient use of resources in society as a whole. The big house is already being heated, maintained, etc. and if people live in it, they’re benefitting from the resources already expended to do this thing. It’s good for the environment and for the economy too because these people living in the house can save money.
On the other hand I also know people with big houses that stay vacant, unused, and sometimes, fill up with material possessions that themselves are unused or only very rarely used. I think this is really sad and wasteful.
we don’t stand for “”“game of thrones”“” around here, we stab our enemies /ourselves/, we have brighter colors and better lighting and sometimes we do take a break from the stabbing to commission some paintings and get some sleep
i did name two of my sons francesco but i waited until francesco 1.0 died of a fever to name my next child francesco i’m not an animal you know
i am going to reblog your post again and say that my daughters are named antonia prima, antonia maior, and antonia minor, and my son is named gaius like me, my father, and his uncle, but at least when we divorce (with a good reason if you are a real man) we take care of our other children. and definetely don’t put the republic in danger for a omen/prophecy.
“I want to be a hematologist. That’s a blood doctor. Well not a blood doctor, exactly. But a doctor that finds cures for blood diseases.” “How’d you decide on that?” “We were dissecting frogs in class and learning about how the blood flows through the body. And I went home that night and wrote an essay. And it wasn’t like any other essay I’d ever done. Normally when I write essays, it takes me a long time, but this was the fastest essay I ever wrote. So the next day I was asking the teacher mad questions, and she was like, ‘You know you can get a job in this.’ And she pulled it up on the internet, and was showing me all about hematologists.”
SUPPORT THIS BOY
I love it when someone gets that thunderbolt “I wanna do this forever” moment. It’s amazing to see that change in them once they’ve got an actual concrete dream to work towards.
Intimacy is beyond kisses and cuddles and sex. Intimacy is getting a headache and taking a nap, and waking up to your laundry folded and your partner rubbing your back. Intimacy is crying and yelling at night about your past to someone who listens and comforts you. Intimacy is watching shows in your pjs for hours and eating pizza together and being able to communicate love through holding hands. It’s never running out of conversation but doing it anyways to enjoy silence.
i’ve been trying to hold back but. i gotta see what bill and ted fanfic is like. i gotta do it
this literally sounds like a line from the movie what the hell
this fic is actually GOOD i’ve never been more angry in my LIFE
i’m so mad and you should be too
listen i’m trying to stop clogging everyone’s dash with this nonsense but this is honestly the best line i have ever read in a fanfic in my entire LIFE i’m laughing so hard
i don’t know how i expected it to end to be honest
Death By Catchphrase 