A thousand words a day -- is it for you?

More often than not, when you come across writing resources, you will come across this advice: write every day. Set a goal of 500/1000/2000 words per day, but it is imperative that you write. Every. Friggin. Day.

Sage advice. Almost at the level of 'if you want to be a writer, read'. Almost, but not quite there. While it is true that you have to read and read aplenty before you can even dream of becoming a published writer, the 1000-words-per-day advice does not -- and more importantly, cannot -- apply to everyone.

Dispensers of this particular advice claim that by writing every day, you exercise your 'writerly' muscles, regardless whether the output is brilliant or full of shit. Just write. If you produce 1000 words per day, you'll have a complete 60 000-word novel by the end of 2 months, which you can then beat and bully into something presentable -- as opposed to taking a year or ten to write one short story.

Here comes the question of quantity versus quality. Sure, there are NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month -- you have to write at least 50 000 words between November 1 and November 30 to win this challenge) products that make the sale. Some even make the NYT Bestsellers list. Case in point: Sara Gruen's "Water for Elephants" and "Ape House". But how many others out there are non-publishable? Thousands? Tens of thousands?

This is my argument: writing, just like any other form of visual and/or applied Arts, is a creative process (insert right brain vs left brain comments here). You improve through inspiration and discovery, not through practice. There are no muscles for you to train, unlike performing arts. Let me illustrate some examples using other forms of visual arts:

1. Photography. People can buy the most expensive gears and still snap bleh pictures even though they snap every day. You know this. Amateur wedding photographers are cropping up like mushrooms after a shower. How many of them make you go, "Damn, where was this photographer when I got married?!" or "Can I afford this photographer for my wedding day?" Great photographers have an excellent eye for composition (not to mention luck for perfect moments), but they improve not by snapping pictures on a regular basis, but by studying other great photographers, analyzing breathtaking pictures, and discover new angles (usually by accident) as they take pictures.

2. Drawing. Well, you have to have the talent for this. If you can't even draw a decent stick figure, forget about it. I'm not being mean, but a fact's a fact. Before you can argue about this example, I'll admit that we can easily see examples of vast improvements in illustrations throughout the years with artists who post on DeviantART and GFXArtist. Funny thing about drawing is that it uses physical muscles, so it is actually part performing art. The more you draw, the better your control over fine movements of the fingers. Sure, some people doodle every day; they can't help it. This is my point exactly: some, not all. Speaking from personal experience, I don't draw that often. I still have illustrations I made back when I was in Primary and Secondary schools, and yes, my drawings have vastly improved since then. But improvements (in terms of shading, expressions, proportions) happen when I 'discover' through imitating great works, reading up on particular techniques, and people-watching.  Not from drawing on a regular basis.

 

You get the picture (pun intended). The only muscles you train by writing every day are those of your fingers. You'll definitely type faster (if you use the computer. If you actually write write, you may just end up with cramps and ink smudges). Most people won't improve from writing every day. Some may, but most won't.

Why am I adamant enough about this that I've written a complete post? Most of us aren't full-time writers. We have day-jobs and/or night-jobs. We have studying to do. We have children we have to feed/send to school/tutor/monitor/shop for. We have pets who demand our constant attention. We have a sick relative we need to care for. We are everyday people with everyday chores. If you set a daily goal for writing, it becomes another chore, and doing this sucks out all the joy from writing, draining your creativity dry. Writing stories is and will always be a creative process. Never ever drown this. Never ever forget this.

And get this: the writing process doesn't only mean physically writing. You can watch a movie or read a comic and still be writing. You can sit back against the plastic chair at Starbucks and watch people pass you by and still be writing. You observe, you learn, you dissect, you analyze, you discover, and you invite inspiration to sit beside you. You can even snuggle under a down blanket and sleep the whole day away and still dream of worlds you will one day write about.

Do not feel guilty for being away from the keyboard for extended periods, so long as you consciously learn from life and from everything around you, and take note, be it mentally or physically (some people like to have a pocket notebook and a pencil handy). Do not feel guilty for being away from your novel-in-progress. The more time you spend away, the more objective your views become. Don't be surprised if out of the blue you come up with the perfect plot/scene to get the novel moving.

I'm the kind of person who writes the best possible first draft I can come up with. Any editing after that is to correct typos, and occasionally to wipe out a character who doesn't contribute to the story. I don't like re-writing. It feels like I'm forcing my characters to do something they don't want to. I'm mildly schizophrenic that way. My characters are real people, and I cannot just rewind and recreate/repair things to make me feel better. The characters get offended, you see. "Act of Faith" (COSMOS Australia, Dec 2010) is a mildly edited first draft. "Flight of the Ibis" (The Aether Age: Helios) is a first draft. "Hospitality of a Goddess" (Poe Little Thing) is a first draft. "Blood Debt" (2nd place, 9th Annual SFReader Short Story Competition) is a first draft.

Then there are heavily edited stories. "A Long Sigh Goodnight" (Black and Whites and Other New Short Stories From Malaysia, CCC Press) underwent multiple editing to shift scenes here and there, add descriptions, delete whole segments. In "Shadow of Phrixos" (The Aether Age: Helios) I removed a child character who -- to my beta readers -- seemed no more than a prop, and in doing so, I had to rewrite a big chunk of the story. I had to scrape off the whole idea on how snow falls in Kuala Lumpur in "Equatorial Snow" (Crossed Genres, Characters of Color). The then-fiction editor of COSMOS, Damien Broderick, rejected the story with this note:

This is very frustrating. I like your writing, and the touches of (for an Australian readership) exoticism. But the "science" at the core of the story is utterly absurd, and the human tale might as easily be set in any contemporary post-conflict landscape. So I have to decline it, sorry. But please do feel encouraged to submit something built around a strong scientifically-supportable idea.

Damien Broderick

And this, my friends, was how I improved my Science Fiction writing. From a rejection mail. I sat back and changed my whole view on Science Fiction. It's not just about futuristic stuff. It's about scientifically plausible arguments. I then thought about how a drastic climate change can happen. I learned about global cooling and geoengineering. I learned about how a large volume of volcanic ash can contribute to a drop in global temperature. Then I applied this new knowledge in my writing. And the editors at Crossed Genres loved the story enough to publish it.

Ah, but here's a caveat: if writing pays your bills, you have no choice but to write every day even if it kills you. It's no longer about the creative process; it's your job. If you've committed you soul, and that of your immediate family members to writing full-time, you cannot afford to procrastinate even if you can only come up with a steaming pile of shit on that particular day. This doesn't mean you're selling out on Art and creativity. You do what you have to do to put food on the table and a roof over your head.

If you still haven't quit your day-job, or you're not on sabbatical leave to write, then don't get stressed if you don't write a thousand words every day. Move at your own pace, dance to your own rhythm, find that center where you can tap your well of creativity without draining it dry.

Just. Don't. Be. DELUSIONAL. If you're a writer who's on Twitter, you must already know about a particular author's meltdown after receiving a critical review. Learn the rules of grammar and of writing. Accept critiques with grace and dignity, and strive to improve.

But hey, this is another topic altogether. For a different time, perhaps.

 

Cheers.

Comments

[John Ling]

More often than not, good writing is like good wine---you have to air it out and let it age a bit.

[Raven]

Bless you-- I think writers so often get discouraged when they have a dry spell. You're right that writing a lot poorly won't help anyone.

BTW, grats on the Master's program! (Sorry I'm slow these days.) You'll do great, even though the timing's off.

[Fadzlishah Johanabas]

John: Right. Some stories are completed within hours, while some take years to unravel. Forcing these stories out won't help anyone.

Breanna: Good to hear from you! Hope Texas is doing ya good. I still want to read new stories from you, but being a full-time mother of 3 isn't easy, so take your time. When your stories are ready, they'll guide your fingers on the keyboard.

[Christian Louboutin Pumps]

Platonic vision of the Sun at the summit of dialectical ascent, one is obligated in Plato’s account to return to the Cave, to make the corresponding dialectical descent into the realm of particularity and the concrete, the world of the “ten thousand things” (wanwu) in Chinese philosophy, and it is with that world our contemporary novelists and filmmakers can be fairly said to be well acquainted, if sometimes or even often in a confused or uncertain manner, at least with regard to ethical values and moral insight. The extent to which we envisage contemporary literature, or any narrative vehicle, playing such a role appears to importantly depend upon our ability to make aesthetic and ethical discriminations and judgments as to what is morally and spiritually