No, you don’t have to write every day, but…
There’s a rumor out there that the only way to be a successful writer is to write every single day no matter what. I hear this way more from men than I do from women, which tempts me to push this nonsense off to a gender issue. Tempting, but I don’t want to go there more than I do already.
A truth is when I first started writing I did write every day. In fact, after I got my kids off to school I’d take me to the nearest diner and write on a yellow legal tablet while drinking buckets of coffee until I could trust myself to go home and type, not go back to bed. And yes, it was long enough ago so that typewriters were our only option.
Of course on weekends I couldn't make the kids disappear until they were older. Sometimes I could write while they tore up the house, more often I had to give it up to the required mothering.
Which is exactly when I began to suspect the admonition I write every day was nothing but a canard.
but… you do have to write!
But… if you really want to be a writer you've simply got to write! Absolutely nothing writerly will happen if you don’t put pen or pencil to paper or hands to the keyboard. How often and when to write is up to you. These days I tend to write close to daily. When I skip a day or even a week I trust myself to get…
