How To Write Consistently

You don’t have to write every day to be a “real” writer.

If that’s one misbelief holding you back from a great writing life, feel free to let it go.

The reality is, consistency is what matters.

And for each person, consistency will mean something different. Maybe for you, consistency is writing daily, or three times a week, or every single weekend. Maybe it’s writing on your lunch breaks four days a week or getting up early to write every other morning.

You’re a real writer if you write, not if you adhere to “rules” about how to be a creative person. Skipping a day of writing doesn’t negate all the previous work you did.

But how do you build consistency so you’re writing regularly if that’s something you have yet to master? Here are a few easy steps.

Create Momentum

One reason some people write daily is that it generates momentum, and once you’ve got some momentum behind your writing, it’s easier to write regularly. It’s also easier to combat resistance and self-doubt.

While you do not need to write daily to feel forward motion with your work, it can actually be a great tool in the beginning. 

When I haven’t written in a while or I’m feeling kind of resistant or stalled out, that’s usually a good sign I need some momentum. So in that case, I’ll commit to writing daily for a certain period of time rather than “forever.”

I know there are benefits to writing daily, but it can feel defeating to believe “real” writers write every single day without fail. That’s just not true.

I set the bar low and give myself a lot of grace, but still make sure I’m writing something daily for my selected block of time. The habit of sitting down to write for 21, 50, 100 (or whoever many) days pushes me forward and actually makes writing easier.

Once I’ve gained momentum, I don’t have to sustain a strict daily writing practice.

However, I do need to stay connected to my writing, so I try to not go more than a couple of days between writing sessions. Anything longer and the process of re-entering the work is much harder for me. You may notice this too, or maybe it’s easier for you.

Either way, I think of my writing practice as me holding a thread that’s connected to my story.

Each non-writing day that passes, I feel my grip on the thread get a little looser. At some point, I’ll drop the thread entirely and have to work to find it again.

So I hold onto that thread to keep steady forward momentum and help my writing practice feel smoother.

Schedule Your Writing Time

This isn’t a revolutionary tip, but it does work.

I like to plan my writing in two phases: the overall time I think a project will take, and then the weekly steps I can take to get there. Scheduling it is how I get the writing done!

For example, while revising my novel, I work off a master revision schedule that tells me which chapters I’m working on each week and when the entire process should be wrapped up. 

Then each week, I zoom in a bit closer and write out the specific things I need to do that week and add it to my schedule. I generally have the most time for writing on Wednesdays, so I might schedule two chapters of revision for that day, while the rest of the week I just focus on smaller sections within each chapter.

Whatever your process looks like, the key is just that you add your writing time to your schedule.

Make appointment blocks in your Google calendar and keep those meetings with yourself the same way you’d keep a meeting with someone else.

Your time is just as precious as someone else’s.

Or maybe you’ll take a looser approach and plan out a word count goal for the week. If you want to hit 1,000 words by the end of the week, designate how many words you’ll try to write on certain days and add it to your to-do list. Monday – 500 words. Thursday – 200 words. Saturday – 300 words.

Bottom line: help yourself be consistent by scheduling your writing and keeping those appointments like you would keep them for anyone else. 

Be Flexible and Curious

The biggest problem with the adage that you must write daily to be a writer is that it’s inflexible.

And what most writers need is a lot of grace, flexibility, and curiosity in their life rather than rigid “rules” that only serve as a way to stoke perfectionism.

Writing isn’t something you’ll ever perfect. But what you can do is improve and learn and get better the more you practice.

If you want to write consistently, you must be flexible with yourself.

Be willing to begin again when you lose grip on the thread connecting you to your words.

Be curious about what you’ll discover if you commit to writing with regularity. Not just what you’ll discover in your own story, but within yourself.

Be excited to make a promise to yourself and stick with it, and be open to the possibility that you’ll build momentum for a while and then lose it, and need to start over. Be ok with all of it.

There’s no need for either/or thinking as a writer. This is an art form, a craft. You’re an artist who is learning and practicing, failing and succeeding.

You don’t need to sit at a desk and write for three hours every single morning to be an artist.

But you do need to sit with your work often, and with an open mind.

If you want to see progress, you’ll need to write regularly, even when it feels impossible. Even when you think you have nothing to say. Even when you’ve been away from the page for too long.

And don’t forget… join me on Instagram for new content all month long about how to write consistently.

Plus, you can download your free infographic on How To Write Consistently here.

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Tell me, do you have any habits that help you write consistently?