Write Daily or Not

Write Daily or Not Stephen King (On Writing) and Julia Cameron (The Artists Way) believe strongly in writing daily. A few others, however, argue that writing daily isnt necessary. So whats a new or struggling writer to decide is the best for them? My take on writing daily is this: DO IT EVERY DAY. Until you find a voice, until you know your direction, until you are a hard-core writer and not a hob Unfortunately when you stop writing for a period, or skip weeks between poems or chapters, you lose ground. You backslide. Its like building a house for a week then letting the weather erode it for a couple months, then you go back to it and have to spend several days fixing whats deteriorated due to neglect. And thinking about writing doesnt work. It doesnt count. While it feels good, and you might consider new ideas to write about, its not writing. Nothing is a substitute for putting words down for a conclusion. Now there may come a day when you have so much on your plate, that you feel discombobulated. Too many deadlines, too confused where to take a scene, uncertain whether a character is needed. At that point, take a day off. Maybe even a weekend but only after youve been writing so steadily that you are honed to scribble each day. My light day is Saturday after a busy Friday putting out newsletters, when Im most likely to have family drop in. There have been times when Ive been at conferences and missed three days, but Im itching to get back to business Youll build your writing in layers. Your talent doesnt embed itself into your brain unless its repeated on a steady basis. If you put weeks and months between your chapters, be prepared to have to do a lot of starting over. Like going to college, taking Spanish 1 this year, and Spanish 2 three years from now a lot is going to be lost in the interim. Yes, you might have been writing for years. But how many years would it really be if you tallied only those days you actually wrote? Write daily. Youll be flabbergasted at your rate of improvement.