It feels so good to finally write fiction again after YEARS of mostly avoiding it. I started working on a new novel in July, something I haven’t really been able to do very much these last few years. I was just minding my own business one day running on the treadmill, and a story idea attached itself to me and wouldn’t let go. I wasn’t sure I had the time or bandwidth to work on a book. But the story kept nagging at me no matter how many times I tried to push it away. So I decided to just give it a try and see what happened.
I’ve learned a lot about myself, my individual writing process, and writing in general throughout my draft. I’m not close to being done and I probably won’t be for a while. But I wanted to share some book writing tips that are working for me at the moment — things that have allowed me to make decent progress on a first draft despite convincing myself I didn’t have time or space or wasn’t good enough to try. I hope my tips help you with your writing too.
Weeks On, Weekends Off
I’m sorry if any of my previous posts ever made you believe you had to write every day. It used to work for me, and that was great for former me I suppose. But writing every day is exhausting. It’s not good for creativity or for your mental health. Consistent writing is important for skill progression and plenty of other things, but that’s about scheduling writing time when and where it works for you. Not about forcing yourself to do it every day to prove some kind of point.
For most of my draft so far, I’ve been writing during the week — usually in the morning when I’m typically most productive — and taking weekends off from writing. This has worked wonders for my productivity and motivation. I actually look forward to writing during the week because it feels like work, but it’s work I really want to accomplish. Then I spend my weekends resting my brain as much as possible, the same way I do on the weekends between my day job, and it refreshes me and prepares me for another week of writing ahead.
This might not work for you — it might not work for me forever, either. You might have to try various writing schedules before you find one that works for you for the moment. Just always remember that your writing schedule can change to fit in with your current needs and availability. Writing can be consistent and flexible at the same time.
Just 500 Words at a Time
I haven’t had a chance to write formally about this much yet, but I’m currently in a long state of recovery from “Wrimo life.” The short version of it is that I used to do National Novel Writing Month every year — for over a decade — and I picked up a lot of bad habits from giving into the pressure of writing 50,000 words of a book in 30 days. I’ll write a whole post or series on all that some other time. I bring it up now because in my effort to undo some of the not-great writing habits I learned about writing fiction and replace them with better ones, I’m trying this new thing where I write a book 500 words at a time.
There’s also the fact that I have a lot going on work-wise — writing is no longer my full-time job, a reality I’m still wrestling with; again, more on that later — and I only have so much time to write. For a long time, I believed that if I could only write a little bit every day, it couldn’t possibly be worth it. I was wrong, of course. I’m going to guess that some of the best books ever written were crafted one chapter, one page, even one paragraph at a time.
You don’t need to write thousands of words a day to write a book. In my experience, it’s not a great idea to do that anyway. You have to treat writing a book a little like a job, but you also have to give yourself and the story space to marinate between writing sessions. This time around, I’m finding I’m much more excited to sit down and write on the days I do … because often I have to stop at the end of my session when I don’t want to, and that leaves me with the next writing session to look forward to.
A Strict No-Editing Policy
This is, quite honestly, the hardest part for me. As I’m writing, I’ll come up with something on the spot that I want to foreshadow earlier on in the story. Or I’ll realize that something I just wrote contradicts a paragraph in the first chapter that I want to correct before I forget about it. I’m an editor by profession, so my first instinct when working with a manuscript — even my unfinished draft — is to do what I probably do best: Rearrange and rewrite to make an already good thing even better.
But I was a writer before I ever edited anything. And one of the most important things I learned pretty early on in my writing journey is that there is nothing more important in the beginning of a writing project than getting the first draft done. It’s going to be bad. Messy. A lot of it isn’t going to make sense. It’s not going to be anywhere near publish-ready. You have to get the story out before you do anything else, though. This is the time when your only job is to get to know your characters, familiarize yourself with the setting, and plow through the most basic framework of your story until it has a beginning, middle, and end.
One of the biggest mistakes writers make when drafting anything is leaning into their temptation to edit as they write. Don’t do that. Draft now, edit later. I make it a point to touch my mouse or trackpad as little as possible when I’m working on my draft. My job right now is to write, which means both hands need to stay on my keyboard. Occasionally I’ll move around the draft to write a scene that’s speaking to me, but the rule still applies. Type now, think later.
I’ve written almost 20,000 words in less than a month. Not at all because I’m rushing or just trying to finish the thing. I’ve been able to do that much, a little bit at a time, because my hands are staying where they belong and my only goal is to tell the story as it comes to me — usually as I’m writing it.
You do not have to write that much in the same amount of time. But if you want to write a book … go write the thing. I’m right here with you.
Meg Dowell is the creator of Brain Rush, dedicated to helping writers put their ideas into words, and Not a Book Hoarder, celebrating books of all kinds. She is an editor, writer, book reviewer, podcaster, and photogra
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