Most of the time, we lack any kind of patience with ourselves, at least when it comes to big things. You want to get in shape, so you cut back on how much you eat, cut out alcohol for a month, and start running, doing sit-ups, join all the gyms. You want to write a book, so you carve out hours to write. You shut yourself away all weekend. And you make fast progress. It’s not too long before you’ve got ten, twelve, fifteen thousand words written. But something happens. An event knocks you off your routine and you can’t get it back, or you just feel dried up when you sit down to write one day.
When I started this newsletter I made the same mistake that I warn first-time authors away from. I published a post every day for the first week, then three per week. Now, part of the value of this newsletter (to me and to you) is that it’s an experiment. The first week I wanted to see if there were daily fluctuations in readership. It gave me some interesting results (which you can read about here—What I learned from week one) and I always planned to dial back. Even when I did, though, I still kept up a pace (3/week) that I’ve realized wasn’t suited to consistency.
What I normally tell authors is that writing a little bit every day is preferable to writing a lot one day per week, even if the total number of words written is the same, and even if the hours of work add up the same. That’s because things come up, and whether you like it or not, they’ll come up when you’re supposed to be writing.
People who write one day per week risk losing a whole week of work when the dishwasher breaks down and they have to spend their writing day dealing with it. On the other hand, someone who writes every morning, or five mornings per week, might also lose the day, but it’s only a blip in an otherwise productive week. Of course, different people work best in different ways, so it’s important to understand that there’s no wrong way to your writing. It is worth thinking about whether your writing habits are setting you up for consistency or for turning interruptions into long breaks.
If you've got a book project, what would it look like if you made the writing schedule as easy as possible?
If you've got to write something like 50,000—100,000 words, it's tempting to try to do it in a sprint. But you can take a lesson from some of the world's most productive writers.
John Grisham and Stephen King both follow a similar method. They get up early and write for a few hours. They try to write 1,000—2,000 words, or several manuscript pages, before they stop for the day. They know that they can't sustain a creative effort beyond that, at least not consistently, and they also know that 1,000 words per day adds up to a first draft very quickly. Cory Doctorow is another author who works like that, but he's even easier on himself. He only requires himself to write 500 words per day. That doesn't sound like much, but he gets about two books drafted per year at that pace. He also tries to always stop when he's in a flow. It makes it easier to pick up tomorrow if you have an idea to finish from today. Imagine itching to get back to your writing. It's a great feeling.
One thing all three of those guys have in common: they're professional writers. It's literally their job to write books. So if they're not pushing the pace faster than that, there's a lesson to be learned. Consistency will win.
Today’s homework: grab a calculator and divide the total number of words you expect to write for your manuscript by 500. That’s how many working days it would take you to get the project done at 500 words per session. How does that look? If you’re feeling bold, drop the number in the comments.