Don’t Focus On Writing Every Day. Focus On Your Purpose Instead
Writing every day could even hurt you, not help.
I write this after spending over a month away from Medium, and I survived. However, I do have some takeaways from the experience.
My goal was never to publish every day — I think that goes against my aspirations as a writer. With that said, because of how easy it is to publish on places like Medium, Blogger, LinkedIn, and so on, I’ve seen people gravitate towards the habit of trying to publish every single day (sometimes even multiple times a day). They turn their profile into a content mill.
Now, Medium is not the only place where I satisfy my writing outlet. I try to write on my own, developing scripts and stories. There are projects that I nurse on the side. Not only is this good simply for my mental health to not have a writing life entirely based on publishing frequently, but it also develops my writing future. There are benefits to writing both short- and long-form projects. So, what should you do? How often should you really write?
Whatever it is, simply writing every single day will not get you there. Instead, look at your goals and think about what you really want to do.
Goal #1: You Want To Build An Audience
Write frequently. Write consistently. However, I strongly hesitate on advising you to write every single day. You don’t want to write just to write something. Medium’s Partner Program rewards higher-quality writing with Boost incentives and better article promotion; not only would it give you more work than you need to do just to write, but it would also be against your benefit stats-wise.
I personally have experience writing for a quota-focused site, and I’m not proud of everything that I published. There were many articles I wrote just to check off a mark, but those articles subsequently performed poorly. Putting heart in your writing is necessary. You need to not just publish, but actually get your voice out. If you don’t really care about what you’re writing, why will your audience? Write a lot, but write with purpose.
If you make article writing your full-time job and put in a full-gusto effort in which you write well-written articles every single day, kudos to you. The results will be slow, but they will come exponentially. With that said, you would need a strong reason to commit every day to writing well. What is the “why” that keeps you going?
Keep in mind as well about burnout. When I think about article writers that spend so much of their time publishing and meeting quotas, I think about LetsPlay YouTubers like Markiplier and Jacksepticeye. I watched them frequently almost ten years ago when they would churn out two videos a day. Now, they had the gargantuan subscriber count and video upload history to justify this turnout, but their burnout was palpable. Nowadays, their level of success and prestige on the platform has granted them the freedom to create a wider variety of content at a less frequent rate. Still, their frequent upload schedule was done to comply with a demanding YouTube algorithm that has since changed. Applying this to writing sites like Medium, you have to ask yourself what is really worth your time and energy. Work smarter, not harder.
Goal #2: You Want To Develop Your Craft
Any writer would consider this to be a goal of theirs, thus making it feel almost redundant to state it so specifically. However, I include this goal because I believe that some writers go about approaching this goal the wrong way. To develop your craft, publishing frequently is not necessary, but writing frequently with purpose absolutely is. However, you have to really consider what you write, and how you write it.
I know that productivity culture pushes out the 10,000-hour rule, a generalized statistic coined by author Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers: The Story of Success. Meant as a rule of thumb more than anything, Gladwell estimates that it takes one 10,000 purposefully-used hours to develop any skill. I would also emphasize that this is meant to be 10,000 consistent hours. Spreading these hours over a gargantuan span of time will weaken any neural networks you develop through practicing a particular skill. Use it or lose it.
But what does it mean to practice purposefully? I remember as a teenager that I wanted to really learn how to play the guitar, so I would set aside an hour a day only for guitar practice. However, during that hour, I wouldn’t have much passion behind it. I would twiddle away at scales and chords until the timer buzzed. Am I a better guitar player for it? Not really.
To go about this, I would suggest having a goal in mind. Also — and this is key — I would practice your craft in ways that stretch beyond the physical act of writing. Reading books (a lot of books), going to conventions, watching YouTube videos about the craft, and allowing yourself to simply explore the art of writing are absolutely essential to growing your skill.
Neil Gaiman has spoken about seeing his goal of becoming a published author as a mountain to walk towards. He would do whatever got him closer to the “mountain” of authorship. Anything that took him away from that mountain, even if there were incentives involved, he would avoid. He has spoken about opportunities he declined and actions he fostered, all in order to get closer to this mountain.
You will not see results right away, but you will be walking closer to the mountain if you act with purpose.
Goal #3: You Have A Story In Your Heart
For this last goal, I certainly recommend writing frequently so as not to lose passion for your story. Yet of all the goals in this article, this goal relies the most heavily on personal perseverance. Not just discipline like audience-building or focus like craft-developing. Perseverance. Whether it takes you three months or thirty years to get this story out, the importance is to keep your heart in it.
I follow something I like to call the Storyteller’s Responsibility. It’s a long mantra that I created that I use to ward off imposter syndrome, writer’s block, or any other obstacle that I face in this craft. At its heart, the Storyteller’s Responsibility states that it is upon the creator of the story to get the story out into the real world, regardless of the obstacles that come.
Hang on to your story and do everything you can to get your story out there. Don’t worry about judging whether the story is “good enough” or not. Of course, write well and do your story justice, and don’t marry yourself to any elements of your story. Edit. Look at your work objectively. All of this serves your story. But keep at it.
I know of so many writers who give up on a story because it’s “probably not worth it.” I can assure you that if the story makes you happy, it will make someone else happy, too.
You don’t need an extensive reason to keep your story going. However, the more personal the reason is, the more likely you’re going to keep writing.
Writing is a lifelong skill that I hope you continue to practice. There’s no age limit to writing. I know people in their 80s who are still publishing books.
With the Information Age upon us, writing is now more important than ever. More people are able to express their thoughts to a wider audience, but with this comes a lot of content without drive. If you wish to use your time to smartly hone your craft and publish worthwhile material to read, be smart about it.
Consistency. Perseverance. Discipline. Passion.
All done with purpose.
