If You Want To Be A Writer, Do A Little A Day
I write lots of words. On this site I’ve often talked about how you should really write thousands of words a day if you like writing. I stand by that statement, but today’s topic is going to be about something entirely different.
When it comes to writing, a little a day is often enough. This is because if you’re brave enough to publish, you’re going to find that every little thing you put out there adds up over time.
Writing Is A Cumulative Activity
I’ll finish this article in about twenty minutes or so. When I hit publish, I’ll have written a hundred articles for this website.
It hasn’t been painful at all. I don’t spend much time on the site at all. Maybe about half an hour to an hour a day writing an article and uploading it.
It hasn’t been time consuming at all. I write at the end of my day – usually about something I’ve been doing during the day or about something I’ve finished reading/using recently when it comes to my reviews.
It hasn’t been difficult at all. There have been some days where I’ll think that I’ve got nothing to write about, but once I sit and type out some thoughts, ideas usually start coming to mind quite rapidly.
The Future
I haven’t run out of ideas. When I think about all the other projects I’m doing and how little I actually know about writing and the business of writing, I feel like I could write every day for years and not run out of material. I’m not saying I’m going to do that (because I’d get boring long before then,) but I’m not planning to stop until I’ve written at least two hundred articles worth.
I’m also still relatively entertained by the whole thing. I don’t really get bored because I don’t write about the same things over and over. I’ve written about everything from Strategy to Nuts-and-bolts headline writing, fiction, non-fiction and the weird world in between.
I’d like to think I’m getting better at it as well. I get more traffic as time goes on, I have more ideas and – whilst my editing still needs work – the words come a lot easier now than they did when I started writing daily.
Lessons Learned From Daily Writing (So Far)
If you write a little often, eventually that adds up. My earlier articles on this site were around 1-2000 words. When I started writing daily, I hit around 8-900 words. Now I’m back up to writing 1500 word articles even though I’m writing every day instead of seven times per month.
It’s a half hour commitment, but I’m well over a hundred thousand words. That’s a couple of books. (Although, they’d be disjointed, I have to admit!)
If you sit and write, then the words will come. People talk about writer’s block, but the one and only cure to it is to sit and write until you’re enjoying yourself.
Having a huge amount of content makes everything easier. Whilst I spend less than an hour on the articles for this site, in thinking about the topics and just writing them with no excuses, I’ve learned a lot more about other stuff. I’ve applied it to other projects and other things I’ve worked on. Most can be boiled down to the fact that if you have more content, everything becomes easier. If you have a relevant article which you can send to someone who needs help, then your job is easy. If you happen to have an article about something topical, then you can tweet it out. Essentially, a big bank of content is worth its weight in gold.
Building habits is not difficult. It’s just a case of doing something until it sticks. The idea after just two-and-a-half months that I’d miss a topic of the day without a good reason makes me feel nauseous. I’ll have broken the chain. I haven’t used any techniques or special tricks to build that habit; it’s just become routine.
(Speaking of routines; check out my copywriting routine for maximum gains!)
That brings me onto the next point; whatever your job is or your business is, if you write about it every day you’re going to find new and novel ways to do things. Some of them are going to be naff ideas, but some are going to be quite good.
I got a lot better at sales letters when I wrote a sales letter a day. I also came up with the idea to find an affiliate program that paid 50% per purchase and then wrote a sales letter for every product they offered.
You could do the same with these two niche site guides:
Final Thoughts
Most problems writers have come from the fact that they don’t stick to a schedule. We’ve all been there. If you stick to a schedule and write every day – even if it’s just 500 words – you’re still going to write nearly two hundred thousand words a year. 500 words will take you ten to twenty minutes.
Of course, once you’re in the habit of writing every single day, you can start actually learning about the craft. The good news is that you’ll have loads to learn and it’ll never get boring.
The better news is that you’ll have my archive of blog posts about writing to help you along the way. There’ll be even more by the time you’re here next as well.
P.S. If there’s anything you want me to talk about, let me know. Even if I don’t know about it, I’ll find out for you and write up my findings.