Daily Writing

Write a Little Bit Every Day

Writing is hard.  Rather, it's hard to write well.  It's hard to write the songs and stories that turn into platinum viral bestsellers.

But ordinary writing?  That's easy.  Just put one word in front of another.  Right?

Why We Dread Writing

Well, we get stressed out when we try writing.  There's this idea that somehow "every single word matters!"  School doesn't help with this — many students have spent their whole lives having every single misplaced comma marked "WRONG!"  Well, that's demoralizing.  If I had to worry about every single word getting judged by someone who controls my grades, I'd also hate writing.

So for starters, it's important to do some writing that you never share.  Give yourself permission to keep your words to yourself.  No one owns your words but you — and you can tear and toss out any of your pages if you don't like them.  (I recommend keeping your writing, but the freedom to burn your writing is yours!)

Ways to Build a Habit of Writing

It might not feel like it, but the writing you do for yourself will help you write better for class.  It's just exercise: every word you write builds your comfort with written language.  And like reading, writing has a lot of neurological components — practice helps that components work together smoothly.

So where do you start?  Here are my suggestions:

1. Start Small: A couple sentences a day can grow into a paragraph or two.

2. Make It Social: Yes, social media counts!  Every status update and comment helps you express yourself with the written word.  Part of how I became a better writer was through AOL Instant Messenger.  Typing messages back-and-forth — sometimes having three or four conversations at a time — really forced me to type fast.

3. Find Something You Care About: Did your favorite band just drop a new album?  Post that shit on your feeds!  Tell everyone why this music is life!

4. Channel Those Emotions: I've found that anger can really motivate me to write.  If I find someone online I disagree with, then BAM!  Instant motivation.  That said, flame wars are not healthy, and your own words can cost you friends or even a job.  It's completely okay to write the comment you feel, and then never post it!  Remember: no one owns your words but you.

Typing?  Handwriting?  Thumb to Phone?  Do the Methods Matter?

I'd love to say that it doesn't matter how you write.  In many ways, that's true — every word you write helps you become a better writer.  Unfortunately, if you're reading this, then you likely have habits that will be hard to change.  Whether you write by hand, by keyboard, or on your phone, your brain has become comfortable with certain ways of putting words to paper.

But these ways are not set, no matter your age.  Back in grade school and high school, nearly all my writing was by hand — I only typed a couple papers in high school, and I was still using handwritten drafts in college for my research papers.  Sure, I did type a lot in college — that's when I used AOL IM — but I still felt more comfortable writing by hand.  As a creative writer, I found that I wrote better stories on paper than on a screen — somehow, I could convey more life on the page with a pen than a keyboard.  But that changed in my twenties.  During ten months in Afghanistan, I typed a whole novel — and then permanently injuring my wrist after slipping on a patch of ice.  After wrist surgery, I had six whole weeks without use of my dominant right hand.  During that time, I went to bartending school and learned to mix drinks with only one hand — and then spent my off-hours trying to train my left hand to use a one-handed keyboard.  That didn't go well — I still can't write stories with my non-dominant hand.  But my typing did improve, and my typed stories suddenly took on the same quality I saw in my handwritten works.  So with that combination of typing a novel and then forcing my non-dominant hand to work harder, I became a better typist.  Not a better writer — just a writer who can write faster with a screen.  (If only that made it easier to write emails . . . )

Typing Helps Me Produce More Words: I've noticed for myself that learning to type very fast has helped me become a more successful writer.  But notice I said more successful — I did not say that typing makes me a better writer.  It's simply easier for me to share words now that I type them rather than write them by hand.  I can churn out novels and research papers very, very fast.  About three times in my life, I've managed 11,000 words of fiction in 18 hours.  That's about 40 pages of writing in a single day — and there's no way my hand could churn out that much cursive without cramping and dying.

Many Writers Find a Stronger Connection with Handwriting: In contrast, I know many creative writers who swear by their pens.  Some have even talked about how getting the right fountain pen can make a huge difference in their writing.  (Full disclosure: I have never owned a fountain pen in my entire life.  I grew up using disposable Bic pens because they were cheaper, and I burned through a lot of ink trying to become a bestselling science fiction author.)  For my courses, I always allow handwritten first drafts — if you're more comfortable handwriting, go with it.  I'll count those handwritten pages as your version history.  If your handwriting is relatively neat, a computer may be able to turn your handwritten page into typed text.  You can download scanner apps to your phone, and some of them can use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to convert your ink and graphite into a standard font.

Thumb to Phone Works, Too: I once had a student who simply couldn't get words out.  She struggled with handwriting, and she didn't enjoy typing.  But she used her phone all the time.  She once asked if it was okay to turn in an assignment she'd typed on her phone.  I was stunned, to put it mildly — back then, I never would have dreamed of tapping out a 250-word assignment on my phone with my thumbs.  But she said that was easier than typing.  So I told her to go ahead and keep using her phone for all her rough drafts — she could always go to a big screen later if needed.

Speech to Text Is Always an Option: I've noticed that many of my students face a similar dilemma — they've never been forced to handwrite much because schools have shifted to computers, but they were never taught to type because everyone assumes that kids growing up with computers must know how to type.  And if you haven't used your hands much to put words on a page, then your brain isn't trained to do.  If that's your situation, I recommend using speech-to-text for right now, and then maybe take some typing classes so you can feel better about working at a screen.