Writing Times

When do you write?

The first great rule of writing is: Write.

I have run across writing advice that derides it as insufficient, but really, that’s the rule that most would-be writers fail at. You have to write. That is more important even than finishing what you write, because it is foundational to all the rest.

You have to write, and writing takes time.

Much writing advice advises aspiring writers to write every single day.

This is one of the great writing questions that turns on the great principle:

Know Yourself

If you must write every single day or fail to write for weeks or months on end because you have lost the habit, write every single day. (Or decide that you are not a writer. Which also works.)

It can help to have a quota. Choose it with care. One that is too large will discourage you because you know you will not reach it, and some writing is better than none. But it should be longer than it normally takes you to warm up.

Furthermore, since its purpose is to keep you coming back to writing, you can and must make the quota up after missing it for a day -- or a week -- but you can not do it in advance.

You can write many multiples of the quota, of course. Ideally you would, because that’s progress. You just can’t count it against future quotas. Advance writing creates a temptation to avoid the quota the next day. Even if you know you will be unable to write for a week, the accumulated debt can help motivate you to get started again.

You also have to edit. This is trickier because I’ve never been able to devise a good quota for rewriting. Ten pages a day? Or an amount of rewriting to reach quota? What do you do if you are mostly deleting the extraneous? But to re-write is also to write, as long as it’s every day. (The question of how to stop rewriting, like how to finish the story, is built on this foundation.)

Other writers require a schedule. This is particularly useful for people who can’t write every day for whatever other conflicting activities are involved. Given the number of activities, a calendar and writing down the designated time are generally useful.

Flannery O’Connor worked like this. Three hours every morning. The big difference between this and the writing-every-day rule was that she didn’t actually require herself to write in that period of time. She could write not a word while she sat at her desk. She just didn’t allow herself to do anything else in that time.

If that works for you, it works for you. Perhaps boredom alone will drive you to write. But you may have to insist that you write in that time. Perhaps to a quota?

Still other writers can keep returning to writing after a time away. This is liable to decrease your output -- unless you will suddenly, after months of silence, start pouring out thousands upon thousands of words in a day.

Possibly even then. If you can always return, the thing is that you have to keep returning to become an actual writer. The more you write, the more practice you get in writing. Furthermore, the more works you can actually write, and rewrite, and eventually kick out the door to face the cruel, hard world.

Writing only when inspired is a good way to not get anything done. Unless you’re William Faulkner, who observed that it was fortunate that he felt inspired every morning at eight o’clock. That is how you build a sound foundation.