You Don’t Need to Write Every Day to Be a Great Writer
Because you’re writing even when you’re not writing.
I’ve been writing for over forty years. I’ve had my first poem — a haiku where I likened my mother’s voice to thunder — published when I was six. I’ve had two books — a memoir and a novel — published traditionally and to critical acclaim (although five people read my second book). Back in 2002, I edited and published one of the first online literary magazines, which was featured in Poets & Writers, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. My words — whether they found a home in literary journals, magazines, or blog posts, have been on the internet for two decades.
When I was in my twenties, I was impatient. I wanted to be Zadie Smith with that astonishing first novel. I wanted that Knopf hardcover and New Yorker Debut Fiction feature like Nell Freudenberger. I wanted my writing to move. I envied my peers and fellow Columbia graduates whose careers had velocity while I inched quietly along.
I would’ve given select vital organs for their boldfaced careers. What I didn’t know back then was that it would take me fifteen years of steady, consistent writing to find my voice and style. It would take decades from that first haiku to feel confident, to know when a line isn’t right by the way it sounds when you speak it aloud.
