Do You Have to Write Every Day? by Bailey Lang
Let’s welcome back Bailey Lang as she shares with us “Do You Have to Write Every Day?” Enjoy!
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“How can I get myself to write consistently?”
This is one of the most common questions writers ask me in my book coaching work as the Literary Witch.
They’re often authors who find themselves writing in a desperate rush to meet a deadline and then crashing, wondering all the while what’s wrong with them.
“Why can’t I make myself write every day?” they ask.
The first question I always ask in response is, “Why do you think you need to?”
Now, there’s nothing wrong with a daily writing practice if that’s what works for you.
There’s also nothing wrong with wanting a writing practice that feels spacious and magical rather than rushed and stressful!
But consistency does not have to mean writing every single day.
In fact, I think conflating “being a consistent writer” with “writing every day” is kind of a trap, and it’s one that can set you up for failure.
Why We’re Told to Write Every Day
The suggestion to write every day is so common it’s practically a truism.
We see it in canonical creativity texts like The Artist’s Way, on social media, and hanging around in the ether like a scary ghost you can’t get rid of.
It’s easy advice to give and understand: If you want to make progress on your book, sit down and write a little bit every day.
Boom!
Done!
Conversation over.
It’s also quantifiable and trackable, which is great for our optimization-obsessed culture.
Did the number go up?
You’re succeeding! (Did you break your streak? Uh-oh!)
We’re told to write every day in part because it offers a simple way to track success or failure.
If you’re writing daily, you’re consistent.
If you aren’t writing daily, you’re not consistent.
Right?
Well, not so fast.
When the Advice Doesn’t Work
One of the problems with “write every day” as a metric of success is that it only measures one small component of your writing practice while ignoring everything else that makes creative expression worthwhile.
Adding new words to your draft is a single piece of your writing practice — an important piece, to be sure!
However, simply putting more words in the draft doesn’t reflect the totality of your creative experience.
“Write every day” doesn’t account for:
- The things you do to fill your creative cup
- Revising and editing your draft
- The workshops and lessons you take to improve your craft
- Conversations you have with other writers that spark a new idea or help you unravel a tricky plot knot
- The reality of the creative cycle, which requires rest (we’ll come back to this!)
Expecting yourself to write every day creates a binary success/failure condition that ignores how complex creativity and life are, and feeling like you’re constantly failing is a surefire way to sap your creative energy.
Many of us have lives that simply don’t allow for rigid daily habits.
Take me, for example.
I’m Autistic and chronically ill.
My energy fluctuates day to day and across the seasons.
I can’t show up the same way all the time, and expecting myself to is a recipe for frustration or burnout.
Everyday life conditions like school, work, childcare, disability, neurodivergence, and even a desire for variety can make writing every day difficult, if not impossible.
Acute situations like health or climate emergencies cause disruptions that “write every day” doesn’t leave room for.
Fortunately, there is a way out of this success/failure binary — and it’s one that will actually help you write more consistently.
How to Write Consistently
If expecting yourself to write every day is a path to frustration and failure, what’s the alternative?
Can you still write consistently even if you’re not writing every single day?
You can, and there are a whole bunch of ways to make it happen.
The first thing to understand is that creativity is not a linear experience.
The writing process is recursive: it doubles back on itself, it loops, and it leaps around; it has cycles.
Honoring those cycles — and your own — is a faster, better, and more sustainable path to writing consistently.
We can think of a creative cycle as having seasons, like the year, or phases, like the moon.
Let’s stick with the seasonal metaphor for a moment.
First there’s a planting season, like spring: a time to gather ideas, brainstorm, create an outline, seek inspiration, make writing plans, and set the stage for what comes next.
Next comes a growing season, like summer: a time of active creative energy and productivity.
This is when all the seeds planted earlier produce fruit.
You’re in the flow state; the words are hitting the page.
It’s glorious.
Then, there’s a harvest season, like autumn: a time to gather everything you’ve created.
This is when you revise and invite others into the process, such as sharing the draft with a writing group or submitting it to publishers.
Finally, there’s a fallow season, like winter: a time to rest and resource yourself before beginning again.
The winter season is ideal for reflecting on what went well and what you want to adjust in the future.
These seasons don’t have to be identical in length, but they’re all important.
Neglecting creative rest will eventually mean your creative engine is running on empty.
Expecting yourself to write every day when you have no creative juice is going to feel bad!
Instead, welcoming fallow periods as normal and nourishing will allow you to prepare for another season of growth.
The seasonal method isn’t the only way to aim for consistency, either.
Here are a few other approaches that enable both flexibility and consistency:
- Aiming to write more days than not (3 days out of 5, or 5 days out of 7, for example)
- Setting experimental daily writing goals for a limited duration and then assessing the results (i.e., writing for 7 days, 14 days, or 30 days and then resting)
- Assigning each day as a green/yellow/red light day based on your energy and circumstances (green light days are high-energy, high-capacity days; yellow light days are lower energy and capacity days; red light days are days for rest or doing the bare minimum)
- Adjusting your writing practice based on your energy levels across different seasons of the year or in response to changing life circumstances
Writing consistently doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing expectation, and you don’t have to write every day to write consistently and make real progress on your book.
Wanting to write consistently is a valid desire.
Consistency and progress do go hand in hand.
The thing we often lose when conflating consistency with daily writing is that you can be consistent without having rigid, unforgiving expectations.
In the end, the only successful writing practice is the practice that works for you — and you get to decide what that looks like.
That’s pretty magical!
Resources and Reading Recommendations
- A Year in Practice, Jacqeline Suskin (affiliate link)
- Magic Maker, Pam Grossman (affiliate link)
- Word Witch, Kate Belew (affiliate link)
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About the Author
Dr. Bailey Lang is the Literary Witch, a book coach who helps visionary authors reclaim their creative magic and finish their books.
Bailey has a PhD in rhetoric and writing studies and they love geeking out about writing, language, and magic.
You can sign up for Bailey’s free newsletter, Ink + Alchemy, for monthly missives that will help you build a writing practice you love.
