3 Thoughts About Writing: What I think All Writers Should Do
1) We should all write every day.
I agree with the very common advice writers give other writers: write every day—ideally, no matter what. “Show up for work,” I’ve heard more than one writer say.
The skill of writing is like a muscle and you’ve got a responsibility to yourself to keep it in shape. The best way to do this is by writing every day. It doesn’t have to be a chapter, a page or even a paragraph every day. It just needs to be something. It also doesn’t need to be what you normally write. My jam is writing science fiction but if I don’t want to tackle a story idea because the idea isn’t quite ready yet, I’ll write an essay like this one. It may not be what I feel I’m supposed to be writing but, hey, I’m getting my work out in! GOTTA GET THOSE GAINS!
2) Physical fitness is as important as mental fitness.
I’m not saying you’re a crap writer if you don’t “max your gains, bro!” I’m saying regular exercise is beneficial to the body and the brain—and that means it’s good for the mind, too. Speaking of which, I also feel strongly that meditation and therapy are both incredibly helpful tools for a writer. I’ve found that meditation helps me with focus and discipline. It regularly helps me recognize when I emotionally don’t want to write but know I should anyway. Therapy, meanwhile, has helped me understand my writing better. The punchline here is: I think, as writers, it’s important that we practice self-care and take care of the most important tool we use for writing—the biological Swiss Army Knife that is our body (mind included).
3) I don’t really believe in writer’s block.
This may sound judgie, but in my own personal experience, when I’ve experienced writer’s block, I’ve realized that it wasn’t a “block” but a “fear.” In other words, I was afraid that something I was about to write would be “wrong” somehow or just not good. I’m also a cartoonist and early on in my attempts to draw, I once spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to sketch a ninja. I kept drawing out this crappy looking ninja in pencil and I kept erasing it over and over until it started to get very frustrating. I got so frustrated I told myself “OK, Pete, STOP ERASING. If it SUCKS, it SUCKS, but it’ll get done!!”
And so I got that ninja drawn. It was in fact a very sucky ninja. But you have to start somewhere. Years later, I was working on a first draft of what I’d hoped would be a novel and was having a ton of trouble with it. Then I remembered the pencilled ninja lesson and I just started writing without worry that it would be bad or “wrong” somehow.
Over the years, I’ve had this attitude reinforced by the common advice I mentioned in thought 1, above. Write every day regardless! Part of any creative process is not being good first, but improving over drafts and over time. If you can’t think of something needed to make the narrative go, just stick something dumb in and keep writing. There’s almost always going to be the next draft where you can fix it.
In Closing:
Those are my 3 thoughts on writing. I’m might have another 3 thoughts next week! Let me know what you think in the comments or troll me in Substack Notes!
BY THE WAY:
I wrote this book and you can go get it on Amazon write now—ER—right now!😅
Just head to ManFromZero.com!
Thanks for reading!