One of the pieces of writing advice I see a lot is: Write Every Day. If you want to be a serious writer then you have to write every day. 

While I agree you have to write consistently, I disagree that you must write every day or that you must meet a specific word count. For some of us that’s not feasible and trying to abide by those “rules” only leads to frustration and guilt. 

I have a chronic illness. Writing every day isn’t possible for me. There are days when I barely have the energy to get out of bed. Those days can sometimes end up turning into weeks of extreme fatigue where my body just shuts down and I‘m lucky if I can stay awake for more than four hours a day. It’s not a matter of being lazy or of not being serious about my writing, it’s that I’m physically not capable of doing much of anything during those times. 

The thing is, I’ve struggled for year with this condition but it wasn’t until last year that it was diagnosed. So for years I had doctors telling me there wasn’t anything wrong and so I would push myself and push myself thinking if I could just do a little more then it would be easier tomorrow. But it wasn’t. Often times, it was harder the next time because I wasn’t allowing myself to rest when I needed. I’ve since learned to listen to my body more. To pay attention to what it’s trying to tell me. I nap a lot. Most days I end up taking a nap in the afternoon for an hour or two. Before I would have fought to stay awake even knowing I was going to end up paying for it later. Now, I stop and take a nap when I get tired and it allows me to get more done because I’m not exhausted and walking around in a fog for the rest of the day. 

Putting myself and my health above other things hasn’t been easy. I’m one of those who tends to take care of everyone else first and then I might worry about myself.  I’m trying to do better but it’s still a process.

Like everything else, the way I write has had to change. I’ve never been good at having a daily word count, because if I missed it one time then I would spend the next week, or even month, beating myself up over not making that goal. I mean, I’ve already written several books so doing three thousand words a day shouldn’t be a problem. Back in the early days I was doing twenty thousand a day easily and consistently. The first book I sold to a publisher was 125,000 words and I wrote that baby in seven days. I of course then spent the next month editing it but the first draft was written in a frenzied week of crazy inspiration. My favorite story and the only one to get me a five star review from a USA Today reviewer was a novella that was around thirty-five thousand words. It was written in a single day.

I can no longer do that amount of writing in a single sitting. For many reasons but mostly my health. Those books were written in the early days of my symptoms when I was mostly healthy and had more energy and less brain fog to deal with. 

These days, I’ve gotten in the habit of writing in blocks. I owe myself eight hours of writing a week. That’s it. Some will say that’s not enough time if I want to be a serious writer. And in reality I often do more than that a week, but even when I’m having a bad week (something that’s happening less as I’m learning to manage my condition) I can get eight hours done. I might have to break it up in to ten minute chunks, but it’s doable… FOR ME. See the important part isn’t meeting some one else’s version of what is acceptable or their idea of the “proper way” it’s to find what works for you. If you write consistently, if you keep at it, then eventually you’re going to have a book.  

Find your own pace. Figure out what works for you. Just write. 

How the story gets written isn’t important. What’s important is that it does.