One Thousand Words a Day: Taking Your Writing to the Next Level

We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Aristotle

“How much do you write a day?” I get asked often at writer’s conferences and booksignings.
“Do you want to know how much I type or how much I think–because writing is thinking,” I usually answer. And that’s true, but I’m a bit convicted by that question. Writing and creativity coaches such as Dr. Eric Maisel and Carolyn See recommend the thousand words a day rule. That’s four double-spaced pages. First thing in the morning is often suggested–before life takes us down the river and dumps us out that evening, exhausted and blurry-eyed from our too-busy days.

I write all day. I write emails. I write blogs. I spit-polish an article. But do I work on my novel(s), short stories, or creative nonfiction every day? I don’t type/work on them every day, no. And there is my conviction. Writing is a muscle. It gets stronger and more supple with consistent use.

Don’t feel like it? Have nothing new to add? Stuck? Avoiding?

Flannery O’Connor said that she showed up for the page every day at 9am sharp–whether inspiration showed up or not (obviously paraphrased).

Big-time writers–seriel writers–they have publishers waiting, contracts signed. They rise early and hit the page hard. It’s a job for them. Most creative types don’t like to connect the word “job” to art, as if that takes away the holiness/whole-ness of creativity, but perhaps we’ve gone too purist for our own good.

If I consider writing my chosen profession, my career, daresay my calling, then I would get up and get dressed and get busy–because of a paycheck and/or the belief that someone needed what I had to say. I press the alarm clock at 6:30 each morning and watch my engineer husband dress by bathroom light. He’s an engineer. He gets up and goes to work. Feeling like it isn’t a daily consideration.

I have to admit I’ve been kind of a binger when it comes to writing. When I’m really working on a novel I’m stuffing my face/my thoughts/my day, and I’m pulling 12-15 hour days on a novel revision. Yes, at times, that’s needed, but it’s time to get back to the daily-ness of taking my writing to the next level.

It’s not that I don’t write–often–it’s that I’ve been using my thinking excuse a bit too much. Thinking is writing, that is true, but typing is writing applied. I can think about cooking all day, but I can’t eat thinking come dinnertime. Same-same.

So, it’s time to recommit–again.

I kiss my engineer hubby goodbye and I settle in–first thing. Not to email. Not to blog.

To write. A thousand words.