Novel Writing: A little every day is enough

This week, I’ve been sinking back to reality after my wedding and honeymoon. That first week back was never going to be easy what with work (I work in a doctor’s surgery and things are pretty crazy right now!), catching up on uni work, and sinking back into day to day life. That has included trying to get back into my writing routine.

I spoke on social media about how guilty I feel when I’m not writing, but then how guilty I feel when I have written, because I should’ve written more. Sound familiar?

Writers are known for burdening themselves with feelings of guilt and doubt. We often put too much pressure on ourselves. But what I’ve been trying to remember is that a little every day is enough. If we can just try and get down a sentence here and there, then it is still progress.

What happens when you write a little every day?

You create (and then keep) a habit
Habit is so important. I talk about habit a lot. And making a habit of writing is the best thing you can do. It doesn’t even need to be a novel you work on daily. Perhaps you’ll stray into a short story, a poem, even non-fiction. Even writing in a journal or diary gets your story-telling brain whirring.

You practice your craft
All writing is great practice. You will learn and develop and improve and grow over time. You can never practice too much, and that’s certainly true for any art form. The more you do it, the better you’ll get.

You’ll wind up writing more
Having the intention to write a little everyday doesn’t seem too daunting. It’s easy to sit down for just five minutes. But what may happen, is your creativity will flow and before you know it you’ll have written more than a little, you’ll have written for more than five minutes. You never know how much inspiration or how many ideas are in your head until you start writing. Sure, sometimes it won’t be much, but other times there will be oceans of it!

Your story progresses
A little is still progress. Five words is more than one, and ten is more than five. And so on and so on and so on. If your daily word count is tiny then it may take you a long time to get to the end, but you will still be making progress. And as mentioned above, some days you will write considerably more than others.

Your story gets finished
It’s so important to finish your projects, you learn so much from getting to the ending. And a little every day is enough to get you there. Keep that end goal in mind when you’re sitting down each day. Keep thinking that if you do a little today, then one day you’ll type in that final full stop.

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I’m hoping for some bigger writing days coming up soon, but until then I’ll keep reminding myself that a little every day is enough. What keeps you going when time is limited? Share your thoughts below.

Until then,
Keep writing (even if it’s just a little!)
M
x

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