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Hello lovelies and welcome back to the blog.

Do you set daily or weekly writing goals, and consistently meet them? If you live and die by the idea that you have to write every day, you might be someone who writes slow and steady. Slow and steady writers will chunk out their work and try to reach a certain word or page count goal every day or every week. This type of novelist keeps a steady pace, pushing forward one step at a time.

Let’s go into some pros and cons and then I’ll give you some tips at the end to write every day successfully.

CONS:

• You may not be able to access the huge number days other writing styles can. 

That means that if you’re behind or close to a deadline, you will struggle to up your productivity even when it is necessary, as compared with a different type of writing style.

• Unrealistic Expectations. 

Life happens and you will want to do things during your scheduled writing time. Rigid schedules don’t work for everyone, and in fact may harm your productivity on days that you have to choose between writing or doing something you want to do.

• Burnout. 

If you do any task every day for a long period of time—even if you love it—you will eventually burn out. You’ll get tired of doing the same thing every day, and it will begin to feel like a chore.

PROS:

• Slow and steady wins the race. 

Increased productivity is nothing to scoff at. Writing daily helps you develop the habit of writing. Some people find that when they sit down to write every day, thoughts and words come more easily because they are so well-practiced at writing even when the muse isn’t cooperating.

• Consistent engagement with your work. 

The more you do something on a daily basis, the easier it gets. The person who writes every day is going to be much more adept at it than someone who’s only been writing less consistently because you will have more repetitions stacked on the behavior.

• You have more chances to try more things.

The more you try, the more you find out what does and doesn’t work. With each day being a new possible scenario, you can try out many more scenarios than you would if you don’t write as often.

 Tips to Successful Steady Writing

• Focus on the writing, not on the word or count. 

Writing every day isn’t about how much you accomplish. Did you show up today? Give yourself that gold star for today. You are building a habit based on consistency, not on output. Put a sticker on your calendar for every day you showed up, and challenge yourself to not have sticker-free days. Don’t break the chain of stickers, and you win the day.

• Figure out what works for your schedule to get yourself writing, and do that. 

I want to reiterate here that you can absolutely try things. Start with what you know works. Is it the time of night that you write? Is it the ambiance, like writing in coffee shops and libraries and feeling the other people around you getting stuff done? You have the opportunity to optimize your writing life faster and more efficiently than any other type of writer. Even if you don’t have a productive day, you can use it as a learning experience to figure out why it wasn’t productive, and then try something else tomorrow. 

• Don’t discount thinking and planning.

Writing is not just sitting at your desk getting new words into a work in progress. It can be talking into a notes app, creating lists of bullet points, even writing snippets of scenes on scraps of paper. If it helps you to write the book, you can consider it equally as productive and important as writing new words.

 

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Do you have a set drafting style, and how would you say it affects your writing and productivity?  Have you ever wanted to try drafting your work differently and how well did it go? Do you set daily or weekly writing goals, and consistently meet them? Let us all know in the comments below!