D: Daily Writing

The Blogging From A to Z Challenge is up to letter D today.

I want to devote this post to something that is very dear to me and has changed me as an author -

Daily Writing: In one statement, I write everyday. I haven't always practiced a daily writing routine, though. In fact, my writing habits used to be very sporadic. I'd write a lot for a good chunk of time and then write nothing at all for another chunk of time. I had the idea that I needed to wait for inspiration to write. That's a method that works for a lot of people so I'm not putting it down. It's simply that I discovered - for myself - waiting for inspiration was becoming a big waste of my time.

Last summer, I wrote virtually nothing. I wasn't keeping track of my word count at the time but I know I hardly wrote at all. By the end of the summer I was depressed, feeling uninspired and generally unhappy because I wasn't making any progress toward my writing goals. How could I make progress when I wasn't 'inspired' to write? After my kids went back to school in August I decided it was time to make a change. I started writing a bit more frequently and I was happier. I had discovered writeclub on Twitter and it was really motivating me. Then I learned of writechain on Twitter and decided to give that a go as well. (I'll be posting more about both writeclub and writechain later in the month).

I decided to start writing fiction daily in the middle of September. I have now written for 205 days straight. I can honestly say that I am a better, stronger and faster writer now that I was six months ago. The inspiration I was always concerned with is a daily part of my life now. I found that the more I wrote, the more I was inspired to write. In fact, ideas began coming to me so rapidly that I began writing them down in a journal so that I wouldn't forget them.

Daily writing has also made me more confident. I've had a short story published and have made a couple other strides toward making my writing dreams come true. So I am a definite believer in the power of daily writing. It doesn't have to be an enormous amount that you write, either. Although, I will say, that the amount I write each day has increased since I started this new path in September.

As I've said before: People say "just write". I say, "Just write daily."