Why 'write every day' is wrong

[The Big Peat]

Matthew, when you first made the leap to writing fiction instead of writing speeches and the like, how much/often were you writing then?

 

[Matthew Hughes]

Matthew, when you first made the leap to writing fiction instead of writing speeches and the like, how much/often were you writing then?

It depended. I wrote most of my first sellable novel in little bits over a period of three years. Then came the aftermath of Expo 86 in Vancouver when all the corporate PR budgets were blown before the end of the fiscal year and my work dried up. I had a free office downtown courtesy of a guy I wrote videos for so I went there virtually every day for six weeks and wrote the last quarter of the book and a second draft. I worked maybe four hours a day on average.

Then I went back to speechwriting, and became a partner in a game-inventing company that eventually got us a deal with the makers of Pictionary and Balderdash, just in time for Nintendo to destroy the games biz.

I didn't do any serious fiction writing until 1995 when an author who came to town saw the first chapter of my second novel -- I'd written it over a weekend as a workshop sample -- and connected me with her editor at a small press. The editor was interested, so I wrote the rest of the book - it was only 50,000 words in toto -- over the next couple of months. I was largely coasting then, having made a lot of money speechwriting. Again, I worked an average of four hours a day.

I sold the mystery to the small press, which then had money troubles, so I sold it to Doubleday Canada. In 1996, my wife got an inheritance that let me ease off speechwriting and do two spec novels. Unfortunately, they were bobbled by two agents in succession, one in New York and one in Toronto, and they became trunk books. I was under no pressure because money was no problem so I was probably working less than four hours a day and not every day.

Then it was back to speechwriting and two very lucrative bouts of ghostwriting that let me take some time away and do fiction again. I resold my first novel to Warner Aspect and wrote a sequel that came out in 2001, just in time for America to lose its taste for funny, ironic stuff.

From then on, it was a gradual shifting from commercial writing to fiction writing, with another fat-fee ghostwriting job to help pay the bills. Publishers began offering me checks if I would write novels for them, and I took the money and wrote. I also started writing short stuff for the pro markets.

In 2007, after the collapse of a ghostwriting deal -- the guy never intended to pay me -- I decided to stop writing crap for money and concentrate on fiction only. To make sure I could live on what I made from fiction, I gave up all my possessions and became a wandering housesitter. Which has been a satisfying mode of life.

And I've settled into a routine of writing three or four hours a day, though not every day.

 

[The Big Peat]

That's one hell of a story.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

That's one hell of a story.

That was mostly just the beginning. I have had an unusual life.

 

[StoryArcs]

I work as a creativity coach. I have also coached many students in a post-secondary environment. My main observation is that it is essential to write almost every day, at first, to consolidate your interest and abilities. The brain essentially needs a context to add learning experiences. Writing every day for at least a few weeks or more, will allow that context to be created internally. Then, you can return where you left off and the brain will pick up as if it were "yesterday", and if not, then at least after a few warm-up exercises will do the trick. You need to get "set up" neurologically so that you have a core experience to build on. If you don't then the learning process never starts to take a life of its own and bring you to where you need to in order to feel fulfilled as a writer. I hope this helps. Ask lots of questions, please.

 

[hscope]

I work as a creativity coach. I have also coached many students in a post-secondary environment. My main observation is that it is essential to write almost every day, at first, to consolidate your interest and abilities. The brain essentially needs a context to add learning experiences. Writing every day for at least a few weeks or more, will allow that context to be created internally. Then, you can return where you left off and the brain will pick up as if it were "yesterday", and if not, then at least after a few warm-up exercises will do the trick. You need to get "set up" neurologically so that you have a core experience to build on. If you don't then the learning process never starts to take a life of its own and bring you to where you need to in order to feel fulfilled as a writer. I hope this helps. Ask lots of questions, please.

The only time I write on consecutive days is once a year when I go on a quiet holiday, when I might string a few hours every day for a week or ten days. The rest of the year I try to get in one session a week - though towards the end of a project I might increase frequency - but sometimes I go for a month or more without writing. That's not to say I don't think about writing. I run my stories in my head like movies and do a lot of editing in there. And I find it very easy to pick up where I left off after very long breaks.

This has not changed since I started writing more than 25 years ago, so I don't believe there is any particular essential method when it comes to creativity. The brain can adapt to the optimal conditions required by the individual and, particularly in a creative environment, the fewer essentials or imposed requirements the better, in my opinion. Mind you, I know writers who find writing every day to be essential for them, so it's horses for courses.

In my case, even the thought of 'having' to write every day is a potent recipe for writers' block.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

I've posted this before, but it might bear repeating: when I'm writing something, each day I start at a hundred or two hundred words back from where I left off. I work my way through, making little changes or additions as they occur to me. When I get to the jumping-off point, I've already given myself a running start and the next sentence just follows through. It's like warming up the engine before putting the car in gear.

Works for me.

 

[hscope]

I've posted this before, but it might bear repeating: when I'm writing something, each day I start at a hundred or two hundred words back from where I left off. I work my way through, making little changes or additions as they occur to me. When I get to the jumping-off point, I've already given myself a running start and the next sentence just follows through. It's like warming up the engine before putting the car in gear.

Works for me.

That's pretty much my method, too, Matthew. I always edit my previous session before starting a new one. However, it can mean a negative word count over the two sessions sometimes

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Its usually made quite explicit that anyone who wants to make a success out of their writing can't be waiting for inspiration but has to grind through it, even when they don't want to - same as any other job.

Well, maybe for some, but not for me, and, I suspect, a few others. If you want your reader to feel the magic, you have to feel it yourself, then transfer it to the written word. A 'daily grind' doesn't support this. But, each to their own. There are some brilliant authors who can write every day.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I think part of this whole conundrum is confusion about the question, what is an author? For me, an author is somebody who has work "somewhere inside them" that has to come out. That process of making a novel is one of inspiration in my opinion, not a process of the daily grind. Far too many newbie writers simply want to be famous whilst copying the work of their favourite author. But you have to have something to say. I've read way too many - usually fantasy - novels where the author clearly has a big fat zero inside them. On this reading, an author is somebody who has work published when it comes out of their mind. Yes, it's great if you can write a book once a year, but not everyone can. These people however are still authors. How many novels did Harper Lee have published…?

 

[kennychaffin]

I think part of this whole conundrum is confusion about the question, what is an author? For me, an author is somebody who has work "somewhere inside them" that has to come out. That process of making a novel is one of inspiration in my opinion, not a process of the daily grind. Far too many newbie writers simply want to be famous whilst copying the work of their favourite author. But you have to have something to say. I've read way too many - usually fantasy - novels where the author clearly has a big fat zero inside them. On this reading, an author is somebody who has work published when it comes out of their mind. Yes, it's great if you can write a book once a year, but not everyone can. These people however are still authors. How many novels did Harper Lee have published…?

Yep and in this self-publishing era it is creating the plethora of titles and clogging the pipes of publishing!

I personally tend to (am forced to?) work from inspiration. If I try to slog it out....it generally is mediocre at best and my goal is not to produce mediocre......yet I know I must practice and keep at it if I am to ever achieve that goal.