How to Write Everyday … Even If You Hate Writing
First, let’s get something right: writing is hard and writing everyday is even harder.
Now that we’ve blown that little snot ball out of our nose, it’s safe to nosedive into the post’s main theme – how to write everyday.
I’ve found out, over the past couple of years both as a creative writing teacher and student, that most people who claim to be writers or who want to be writers or who just want to get better at writing, find it extremely hard to write everyday. Like every other thing in life, to get better at writing, you must do it daily.
That said, most individuals usually come with already made rosy excuses about why they can’t write everyday:
“I’m waiting for inspiration; I don’t have the time; I have two kids; I work full time; I’d like to write but my girlfriend gets offended.”
Amidst all the excuses, there're ways to write everyday, even if you hate writing. Again, let’s blow out another snot ball from the left nostril:
Please read Brenda Ueland’s book.
Back to the matter. Here’s how you can write everyday:
1. Write A Sentence Everyday:
I mean it. Write a sentence, simple sentence, compound sentence or compound complex sentence, it doesn’t matter. Just put words that make complete sentence together and make sure it ends with a full-stop(.). If you do it everyday, you’d realise that your thirst for writing more sentences would increase – one sentence might even lead to ten sentences on a good day.
2. Read A Newspaper Article in The Morning:
If you think you’re stuck and can’t think of anything to inspire that first sentence, read a newspaper(s). I believe inspirational stories hide in between the unserious and the serious – for example, between Tmz and Guardian – where unserious might be weird stuff about Jenner’s old balls and serious represents Obama’s white hair. Make sure you react with a sentence and not with a frown.
3. Put It Down Before You Think:
If you spend too much time thinking about writing the best sentence ever, you will never write. My dear friend, just put the words down before it disappears from your brain. If you’re a poet, playwright or a novelist, it’s always good to know that it is cool to create by scattering various words on your canvass. After you’ve done that, you can always come back to edit.
4. Edit What you Wrote Yesterday:
That last sentence seem too long or vague? Visit it the next day and kill Bill. I mean if Bill makes life unclear put a sword in it, exterminate it. If you’ve created a vague sentence, rephrase it. Simply put, re-writing is the real writing (this is for another post)
5. Keep It Simple
Some of my students try to get smart with their figurative expression and, often times, end up confusing the reader; don’t try to be too smart, keep it simple. Life is too short and readers don’t want any thing that would make their life complicated.
6. Read
Read books! To be a good writer you must read books like a writer, that is, read every word, every sentence, every paragraph with close attention. In addition, pay attention to how the author uses punctuation marks as it can teach you one or two things about pacing a narrative. It goes without saying that if you want to be better at your craft, you must climb the shoulders of others who have done it better. Again, read every day.
This, by all means, is not an exhaustive list. What inspires you to write everyday? Or, how do you get yourself to write everyday. Please, I’d like to hear from you.
I do the Twitter thing @moshoke
