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Sandra de Helen's avatar

I'm one of those people who advise "write every day." I started a daily writing practice in 1987. Some of those days are editing days, or submitting days, or promotion days. But I don't set a time limit (ten minutes a day will keep you writing), and I don't set a word count. But I write to publish or get my plays produced. If a person doesn't have that goal in mind, that's fine. Writing for oneself is fine too. For me, writing is creating something, and creating something gives me life. I could work at jobs I wasn't crazy about so long as I was writing every day before work. I can get through grief, anger, depression, or boredom so long as I have my writing practice. And I thank you for posting pictures of your chickens! Chickens bring me and my daughter joy every single day.

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Rowenna Miller's avatar

I think it's great if a daily practice works for you! For me, and this is probably too much info that I should shove into another newsletter someday, ha, I've learned my process and I work better when drafting is done as deep work for several hours at a time--and I do not have time every day for that. For me, ten minutes a day isn't helpful--I produce work I'm not happy with and could have better used that ten minutes for some other task. So my writing schedule looks like a weekly, rather than daily, schedule. Everyone is different, and that's ok!

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Sandra de Helen's avatar

Absolutely! Ten minutes is really not much. For me, when working on a long piece like a novel, it's crucial that I read it every day to keep it fresh. In truth, I'm writing in my head in spare moments so I have something to put down the next day. Now that I'm retired though, I can spend a lot more time. And if I truly only have ten minutes, I can write some words on a poem...

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