Writing every day is seriously misunderstood.
When writing gurus tell you to write every day, it doesn’t mean that you should write an article a day.
That is what my “Write Your Book” course participants thought, too.
They thought they had to write a chapter a day, and by the end of 30 days, they would have a book ready to publish.
I am partly at fault because I kept referring to my book “Write And Publish An eBook In One Week.” True, I wrote that book in one week, but that is not what I expected from the course participants.
When I wrote that book, I wrote roughly 4000 to 5000 words a day. But I could do that only for four days. For the next three days, I edited it. And I had to push myself every day. When you write so much a day, you come to dread it. Once I finished the book, I didn’t want to look at it for months.
Such sprints are not sustainable.
Especially when you are starting.
Think of it this way, you join a gym for the first time, and your trainer gives you a full-on routine. Chances are you will dread it pretty soon.
Now imagine the flip side.
The trainer gives a routine so easy that it doesn’t feel like exercising. You feel such a sense of accomplishment that you would want to do it every day. Right?
Then after a few days, you increase the intensity. You work out longer. Because it is ridiculously easy so you want to make it harder. Besides, now that your muscles are getting used to the movements, you can do much more with the same amount of effort.
You feel motivated.
Motivation requires two things - one is that the activity should be easy enough to accomplish. Second, it should have the right amount of challenge.
Not too much. Not too little.
Just Goldilocks’s right.
It is the same with writing - not too much that you can’t do it and not too little that you feel bored.
Professional writers, even those who have written bestsellers after bestsellers, write only a small section a day.
Salman Rushdie famously writes only 800 words a day.
Elizabeth Gilbert writes for forty minutes a day. She doesn’t even care how many words she conjures up in that much time. As soon as the time is up, she shuts her computer off. She knows that if she pushes herself the next day, her mind is going to rebel.
You don’t need to write a copious amount of words to write a book. Start with whatever is the ‘just right’ amount for you.
Even 250 words (or 15 minutes) are a good start. Make it purposely easy so that you can get it done and feel good about it.
Then, after a few days (or weeks), make it a little challenging.
Before you know it, you will be writing 800 words a day with much ease.
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That’s all from me this week.
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#76: The Goldilocks Rule
I enjoyed reading the Neera