One of the best/worst pieces of advice I got when I was a beginning writer was “A writer writes every day”.  I think I first heard it in an interview with Jane Yolen while I was in high school.

Shit, man, I thought.  I can’t find time to write every day.  I have stuff to do! Homework!  Dog-walking!  A part-time job!  Important Jedi-related activities!*

Many years later, after beating myself up over not writing every single day, I realized that what was really important in that bit of advice was not “write some crap every day” but “develop a sustainable routine that includes writing”.

I’m a professional writer.  I make my living from books and only books.  I don’t write every day.

Sometimes I’m doing other stuff that relates to my career–editing, proofs, traveling for promo, etc.  Some days, it just doesn’t happen because Life crops up.  The cats need the vet, something in my apartment explodes, or there’s simply too much urgent stuff that needs doing Yesterday.

But!  Here is the but!  I do continue writing no matter what.  I regroup and I start again the next day.  I do my daily wordcount and I plan, if not succeed, to do that every. single. day.

Here’s the thing–if you’re going to go pro and meet deadlines, your methods have to be sustainable.  They have to work for you over and over again.  They have to be reliable when nothing else in your life is.  For some people, this could mean writing an hour every day.  For some, it means writing six hours a day on weekends and working the rest of the week at a day job.  It can mean 250 words a day, or 5,000.  It just has to work.

Writers fail to finish work or publish work because they can’t sustain, not because they’re bad people or bad writers (mostly.  Some people are also bad writers, but that’s not for me to tell you.)

If you’re a beginning writer, especially a teen writer, this can be a daunting prospect.  Here’s what can help make it work:

Don’t cater to anyone’s expectations.

This has to work for you.  Not what a pro author says, not what your parents say, not what your writing group tells you to do.  Develop your routine for yourself.  Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t follow some “method” that you find via another writer or the internet.

Practice time management.

Once you’ve decided whether you are a morning/evening writer, a week/weekend writer, a coffee shop or comfy chair writer, make sure you can duplicate your timeslot with at least some regularity.  If you have to juggle a million things in order to write at 2pm on Wednesdays, for Steve’s sake, pick a different day.

Expect to fail, at least at first.

Writing routines are hard.  Don’t get too negative on yourself if at first you don’t have blazing success in putting words on the page.  If you sit there for your prescribed two hours staring, you’re at least training your mind and body to sit and focus for two hours.  Which brings me to…

Find your focus.

I often write with music or the TV as background.  I know some authors who need complete silence and some who leave their house all together because they can’t concentrate at home, with tasks bugging them.  Some of us can have the internet on, some of us unplug to write.  Figure out what you need to focus and achieve it.  If you need your husband to wrangle the children for an hour, ask.  If you need your roommate to turn off Call of Duty, hold a house meeting.  Lack of focus is crippling even for pros.

Be honest about your  limitations.

If you think you can write 3,000 words a day, great.  But I don’t know many beginners or pros who can do that.  If you can manage 500 in a session, set that as your goal.  It’s not important how enormous the goal is, it’s important to have a goal.

Realize you are not a special snowflake.

Writing is my job.  Writing, if not your job, is still work.  It is the work of creation.  It is not meditation or “crafting” or “illumination” although it can also be those things.  Writing, first and foremost, is the tangible product of your creative mind.  And it takes work to make a product.  Waiting for your “muse” or your “creative flow” are excuses from amateurs who don’t know the real amount of work it takes to sweat words onto a page.  Don’t set yourself up to fail by waiting for things to be just right.  Sit down, write something, and see how you feel.  You can train the muse to appear on command.  I promise.

Write.

Don’t make scene notes on cards.  Don’t do research on wikipedia.  Don’t make playlists for your favorite characters.  When you’re engaged in your writing routine, write. Even if it’s shit.  That’s when you set up separate editing time.  I’m a huge proponent of drafting without editing.  I realize it doesn’t work for everyone, but I strongly urge you to try it, at least at first, if only to kickstart your process.

In conclusion, when you’re starting as a writer, don’t let anyone tell you this isn’t hard.  It is.  It’s hard and scary and confusing, but also ultimately rewarding and wonderful and life-changing.

Get started.  You’ll be surprised how far you can go.

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*I was, shall we say, just a bit into Star Wars at the time.