Do not write every day. (Do say hey to your story.)

Ever hear the advice to write everyday? And the anger that tends to follow?

I get the anger, I really do. It’s not everyone who has that kind of time everyday. Or brain space. Or bandwidth. Whether the advice was meant to be blanket advice or specific to an occasion, I honestly don’t know, and I’m not jumping into AI-infested Google waters to find out.

But I do know that it’s been hurled around like a must-be-hit-by piece of advice to most aspiring and established writers. Because it’s so widely spread (for good or ill), I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time dissecting it to find if any of it worked for me.

(I love dissecting advice. We are beings filled with reality creating perception filters and individual relationships with words that should mean the same thing to everyone, but simply don’t. Bliss.)

It’s a simple piece of advice, right? Write every day.

Let’s start with the easy part of this puzzle: Every day.

That means what it means to mean: Every. Day. Seven days a week (some say five is the same, but that’s not what every day means), three-hundred-and-sixty-five-or-six days a year.

That’s a lot of days. It’s easy to see why so many people are against this advice, what with it being every day.

But why every day? At first, I honestly believed it was about wordcount. The more you write, the more words you have, the more projects you complete. Simple math. 

It took me a while to figure out that wasn’t quite it. It wasn’t just about teleporting words from brain to page, though that’s always fun. For me, it turned out to be about not losing the thread of my story. Brains have many demands on their time, and if I don’t engage with my story once a day, I start to lose threads. (My brain might be lazy.)

I try to write short stories in one sitting, to be honest. Then I don’t lose the flow of words or character. For novels, or longer stories, writing every day means I spend less time trying to figure out where I was, and what my characters were up to. It gives my brain less time to mull on its worries and fears that the story completely sucks (I mean, usually my first drafts aren’t magical. But a bit less story angsting is good).

Then there’s the other part of the advice. You know, the writing bit. Write every day.

That part, the “Write” part…well, that’s one you should take some time thinking about for yourself. But here’s my thinking, if it helps.

Writing demands a lot, at times. You have to sit down. Block out the world. Step into another life, one probably very different from your own, pick a point in that life that makes a good story, and select the words to tell it with.

My mind doesn’t go through all those steps, but my bones feel them. Most days, I’m lucky to be vibrating with excitement. Others, less so. That’s normal, but on the days I don’t want to? It’s like plucking out my own eyelashes.

That’s not the writing’s fault, though. That’s my relationship and perceptions of the writing, built over decades. The writing is what it is. You put words on the page. You form books and stories by putting words on the page. Otherwise, you don’t.

I write mostly novels, so staying in my story is vital for me to finish them in decent time. (I write on average six novels a year, most under pen names.)

Writing every day didn’t work for me. Still doesn’t. But you know what does, and what’s saved me so much time in trying to figure out next steps?

Storying every day.

Not writing. Writing is a big word, with lots of expectations and connotations. It’s an action, and one that’s often interpreted as difficult. But storying? That’s fun. Not always the act of writing, but the story? Story is character, action, witty comebacks, heartbreak, hope, explosions(!)…it’s everything I love about writing.

Morph the old adage of write every day into story every day, and see if it impacts you like it did me. Just touch the story. Bask in it, let your brain hop around the next scene you’ll get to write. Make a point of coming up with a fun line of dialogue or a lush description you can’t wait to get down on paper.

On days I don’t have as much time or bandwidth, all I ask of myself is to commit to five minutes of sitting with the story. That’s it, and it usually leads to words. And writing. And a better grasp of my story.

That’s it. That’s all.

So, don’t write every day. Instead, story every day, to keep that plot thread vivid and strong.

And, always, take writing advice with a grain of salt, nay, dust, and find the glitter of fun that keeps you going, dear writer. Writing is very personal. I’ve spent years dissecting much-touted writing advice to find the glitter in the dust because glitter usually works for me, but you must do what works for you and your stories. Always. 💖