Writing

Writing can be daunting and or exhilarating. It can feel like we’re staring at a blank page for hours on end, or it can come easily as we type everything that comes to mind. When we’re typing at a measly 1 word per minute, or deleting everything on the page, it’s because we aren’t sure of where to start. But if the goal and the topic is as clear as day, we can hardly contain ourselves as we pour our thoughts and ideas onto the page.

But whatever the case may be, one thing that I’ve learned about writing is that it’s a discipline. It’s something that must be practiced in the same way a sport requires practice, or learning the piano or math requires practices. When we don’t practice, it’s hard to keep up with where we left off. It’s as if the muscle memory in our fingers haven’t been trained in awhile. It needs practice to maintain the same level of word count and speed that was cultivated from previous writing sessions.

Some days will be hard, and some days will be easy regardless of how long we’ve been writing. Some days we won’t want to write. We’d rather take the day off, make an excuse not to write. But that doesn’t help us to reach our goal, which is to become better writers, and to finish short stories, novels, essays, whatever it may be.

I like to set short, easy goals in the beginning. 500 or 600 words to start with. Then build up the word count from there. Overtime, it’ll get easier to reach the goal, and then we’ll have to increase it to a 1,000 or 1,200 words. And if we keep writing, even that will get easy.

At some point, we’ll reach our limit: a feasible but challenging amount of words to write each day. We’ll know we got there because of the hard work and discipline we put into writing. After that, writing a lengthy book or a series won’t seem impossible as it once did.