Those Nagging Little Questions – Chapter 4 – How Often Should I Write?

The short answer for me is that I binge write. I will go days, sometimes months, without writing a blog post or chapter for another book. The Sunday posts you read from me on this blog were mostly written during the span of Christmas 2016 through the first week of 2017. There may be a few I do not complete until later, but only have about 10 left to do. (I’m not doing them in order for you who see a problem with the math.)

I saw an interview with a singer/song writer during the South by Southwest music festival many years back. Her manager was having her write a song every day. He told her up front he knew most of them would be no good, but she need to exercise the mental muscle to make it stronger so the good songs started coming more often.

Therein lies the rub and the answer to your question. When you make the time to write does it always flow for at least an hour? If not, then you need to write every day until you reach that level of writing comfort.

I know, everyone claims to not have the space or quiet to write every day, but, you do you just choose to use the time for something else. Do you work in an office where you get a lunch hour? Bag your lunch and bring a NetBook or just a pen and steno pad. Scratch out a 500+ word blog post about something which happened on your way to work and when you get home actually post it. Don’t try to be factual, spin something inspired by what you saw or heard.

After you read this uninstall each an _every_ game from your computer. Nothing derails you from writing like a “quick game of solitaire.” You mean to only play one to “clear your head” and an hour later you find you are still playing the game.

My situation is a bit different than most of you. As a traveling IT consultant, I work 7 days per week 10-14+ hours per day when under contract. Writing software still exercises the “creative” part of my mind. Thinking about how to solve a specific programming task then writing and testing the code helps keep that mental muscle in shape. When I get home I both veg and catch up on everything I wasn’t around to do while under contract. This veg can be from a week to more than a month depending on how long I was gone. After that I start writing blog posts or writing example code which will become part of a geek book or, usually both.

Binge blogging is happening for several reasons. I have a new book in the works, “The Phallus of AGILE and Other Ruminations.” In order to focus on that I need to get this blogging out of the way. Beginning the second week of the year I will most likely sign another contract so I have between now and then to get the blog posts for this site done as well as finish a large chunk of that book.

Pressure time goals both help and hurt a writer. Far too many of us will sit around playing some computer game or, God forbid, using FaceBook, instead of doing the writing we know needs to be done. How do we know? We are writers, therefore the writing needs to be done. Setting target completion dates for things can act as the prod which keeps us going. These can also kill us though, especially if you enjoy FaceBook or any of the other great time wasting sites. You _only_ go to those sites when you are marketing your book. You _only_ market your book when it is done or off to one of your professional editors and you are waiting for their suggestions to come back.

Yes, there are those who tell you to market your book before you write it and to market each and every day. The problem with that is people, namely you, will lie to yourself that every minute you spend on these time wasting services is marketing when you are really just goofing off.

So, for those of you falling into that category, here is the hard and fast rule. You need to write for 10 PRODUCTIVE hours to _earn_ one hour on FaceBook. PRODUCTIVE means actual writing, not checking email or surfing the Web to look stuff up. That’s how often _you_ need to write.

To steal a phrase from the trucking industry, “If those wheels aren’t turning you aren’t earning.”