This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the helping writers become authors podcast.

I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Do you have to write every day? 10 pros and cons.

Should writers make it a habit to write every day? Is that the secret to success? Is that what distinguishes real writers?

I used to think so. Often when someone would ask me for my single

recommendation for other writers, my go-to response was to reiterate some form of the advice from Peter DeVries that I attacked

above my desk for almost as long as I'd been writing.

He said, I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I'm inspired at 9 o'clock every morning.

Now I've dabbled in writing ever since I was a kid, but as soon as I got serious around the time I finished high school, I started making writing a rock solid part of my daily schedule.

For many years, my writing time was firmly 4 to 6 p.m. every afternoon and

Lord help anyone who interrupted that sacrosinked time. Usually it was my favorite time of the day. Other times it was the worst, hardest, most agonizing time of the day. But thanks to that commitment to writing for two hours a day for at least five days a week every week,

I outlined researched, wrote, edited, and published books that might never have seen the

light of day otherwise.

Now when I say writing every day, I don't necessarily mean every day.

What I do mean is creating and sticking with a specific and regular schedule that has you writing more days than not.

I still absolutely believe this practice is a secret to success. Certainly I feel it was instrumental for myself as a young

writer building discipline, skill, and experience.

Writing at its best is fun and glorious. experience. soul-killingly hard sometimes. This is for so many reasons, some of the mental and practical, others

personal and emotional. Regardless, it ain't for the faint of heart. And so sometimes our motivation to keep going through the hard patches needs a little practical

support.

Solid writing schedules are one of the best methods of support I've

personally found. The more entrenched the habit becomes, the less

resistance the writer finds to showing up at the page. Plus how else do you rack up the words as

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