The open book: what writers don’t tell writers about writing (part 7)
If there’s a million dollar writing question, it’s this (understanding of course, there are some 2 million dollar questions, usually on getting an agent/publication):
Should writers write every day?
Read ten writing books.
No, ask ten writers.
Take a poll on Twitter.
Doesn’t matter. You’ll get predictably conflicting answers to the question.
Predictably?
Absolutely.
Most of us have an understandable aversion to looking lazy in public (dang you, deeply embedded Puritan work ethic of the western world), so you’ll get a majority split favoring yes answers: yes, I do; yes, you should. It’s saintly to aim for, really. Aspirational. And sometimes, it’s also completely true.
But the truth is also No: no, I don’t; it’s not a huge deal if you don’t; sometimes no one can, and that’s completely normal.
It’s a messy, dialectical world up in our brains, and the yes and no are simultaneously true. There are great reasons and explanations for why this is.
