The Worst Piece of Writing Advice
Why it’s so wrong, and what you should do instead.
Almost everyone repeats this same rule. Write every day. Build a schedule. If it works for you, great. But too many writers — and content creators in general — wind up burning themselves out on this plan.
It can lead to strange limitations. One guy I knew from grad school wouldn’t go over 500 words a day. When I asked why, he said, “I want to keep up a consistent daily schedule.”
“But what if you’re on a roll?”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll stop myself in mid sentence if I have to.” Apparently that’s what Graham Greene did.
The “write everyday” mantra stems from a single toxic assumption. What other writers did will work for you. Just copy what Hemingway or Fitzgerald or Atwood did, and you’ll publish your way to a fortune.
Except you’re not these writers. You live in a different era, with different technology. Your life and job come with different expectations. What helped them may hinder you.
The real advice is to pay attention to your process. Your own writing habits and strategies need to evolve. What worked for you for six months might stop working tomorrow. You’ll have to try something else.
