The real reason I write every day

When I was a kid I played the violin, and I hated it. Looking back, it was actually a terrible instrumental choice for me. Unlike the rest of my family, I'm not very musical. I have a very bad ear for tune, and the violin gives you enough rope to hang yourself twice over in this since you can literally put your fingers anywhere. I probably would have done much better with piano, where you hit a key and get a note, but by the time I started piano I was 5 years into violin and I'd already learned to hate anything that resembled practice.

My mother made my practice my violin every morning before school. EVERY MORNING. I understand now why she did it, she was trying to show me how practice makes perfect and that by sticking to something through the hard parts, they would stop being hard and I'd be happy with my progress. Unfortunately, none of these lessons took at the time, mostly because 1) I hated the violin, and so 2) I didn't pay attention in practice, just went through the motions so my mom would get off my back, and therefore 3) I never actually got any better.

I quit violin the second I got to High School and never touched another instrument. Way I saw things, I'd toiled in the violin mines for 5 years with nothing to show for it. Therefore, clearly, violins were stupid, unplayable instruments that only freakish naturally talented people could ever hope to master.

I didn't realize it until years later, but I took many of the lessons from my battle with the violin with me to writing. You see, back when I was first getting serious about the idea of actually creating a story for other people to read, people said (as they say now and have always and will always say) that I needed to write every day. I had to stick with it, to push past the hard parts and get my words, and bit by bit, all those 500 word sessions would stack up into a novel.

Now, don't get me wrong, this is a true point and an excellent sentiment. If you write so many words every day, eventually you will have a novel. Many, many novels are written this way. I've written novels this way. But there's a difference between writing every day and forcing yourself to write.

I harp on the idea that writing should be fun a lot. It's one of my core beliefs. If I'm not enjoying what I'm writing, then I stop and figure out why. Sometimes, I don't write it at all (notice how I didn't say "I don't write" just that I don't write the thing I didn't like). I believe that an author's love and passion for their own work can't help but shine through the prose. That energy that consumes you when you're writing something you love gets transferred to your reader and becomes infectious. Also, it is phenomenally easier to find the time to write daily when you're looking forward to the exercise.

This is why, when I hear people talking about daily writing practice, I get a little tic in my jaw, because it makes me think of that damn violin. Not to willfully misunderstand the usage of the word "practice" here (meaning both "the act of" as well as "doing some to get better" in this instance) but the connotation is not a pleasant one for me, because that trial I endured every morning through elementary school and middle school is something that I never, ever, ever want anywhere near the joyful, wonderful event that is writing.

I'd almost rather you not write at all than force yourself to write when you hate it. You see, resentment is like grime. It builds up slowly and poisons everything around it. I know. I did this to myself a few times in the early days, forcing myself to get up every morning and write words I didn't care about. It was just like the violin. I resented the work, resented how it didn't get any easier or better. I resented my writing, and that is a horrible, horrible feeling for someone whose great ambition and driving force in life was to be a writer. I felt I was betraying myself, betraying my dream and all my work. I felt like a failure.

It was fear of this feeling, fear of losing my stories to my resentment, that taught me to stop treating writing like the violin. The only way you become a better writer is through practice and observation, writing stories and figuring out why they work and why they don't. But if you're just writing because you have to, to meet a quota, then you're like me with that violin, and you're not getting any better, which kind of defeats the whole point, doesn't it?

One of my greatest triumphs over nine years of writing seriously was learning to love my writing instead of just practicing it. I still write every weekday (I'd write weekends, too, but I have a toddler who wants my attention for some reason. Something about being a mother? I also have a house that doesn't clean itself. Jerk.) only now I refuse to write things I don't like. These days, though, I take daily writing even more seriously than I did when I was writing to a quota, but for a new and much better reason.

One of my absolute favorite sayings is that "writing begets writing." The more you write on a story you enjoy, the easier, better, and more exciting the next day's writing becomes. When I write every day, I build up momentum, like running down hill with a hang glider. Get going fast enough, and the story will lift you up all on its own and take you flying, which is every bit as awesome as it sounds. This is my goal in every book, to reach that lift off point, and the only way I get there is by writing regularly on projects I love. And let me tell you, my word counts on the flying days? Breathtaking.

Today's going to be a flying day for me. I hope you have the same.

Happy writing!
- R