On Writing

You Won’t Get Very Far as a Writer if You Don’t Do This

Even Stephen King struggled after breaking his daily habit, over two decades ago.

“Read a lot and write a lot” is the Great Commandment, according to Stephen King. It’s no secret — writers, write.

But let’s start off with a little reminder, shall we?

Stephen King is one of the best-selling authors of all time. He’s written 63 novels, over 200 short stories, and sold over 350 million copies over his 40+ career span.

King is one of the most prolific and most published authors of all time, and he does it by writing and reading every day. He aims for 2,000 words a day, every day. He writes on Christmas, the Fourth of July, and his birthday. And while he considers himself to be a “slow reader” — he reads about seventy or eighty books a year. He reads because he enjoys reading, yet there is a learning process going on.

“The truth is that when I’m writing, I write every day, workaholic dweeb or not. That includes Christmas, the Fourth, and my birthday… For me, not working is the real work.” — Stephen King

His daily writing and reading habit is key to King’s success. But in July 1999, King was forced to take a five-week break from writing. He had a life-threatening accident that left him in the hospital for three weeks, and months in recovery.

And while you’d expect a best-selling author to jump right back into his habit of daily writing, full of inspiration, and make up for the five weeks of no writing — that wasn’t the case.

After just five weeks of not writing, King felt like he had never written in his life!

“The first five hundred words were uniquely terrifying — it was as if I’d never written anything before them in my life. All my old tricks seemed to have deserted me. I stepped from one word to the next like a very old man finding his way across a stream on a zigzag line of wet stones. There was no inspiration that first afternoon, only a kind of stubborn determination and the hope that things would get better if I kept at it.” — Stephen King

Stubborn determination… Isn’t that how anything worthwhile gets done?

King struggled to write after he’d stopped writing for a few weeks. Yet, a lot of aspiring writers expect to make it as “writers” by writing once a week. Sometimes we stop writing altogether for months and then wonder why we can’t write and have nothing to say.

As the old saying goes, if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.” — Stephen King

If you want to be a writer then write and read, every day. There’s no slowing down. Read widely, and constantly work to refine and redefine your own work as you do so. King recommends a daily reading and writing program of four to six hours. It shouldn’t be thought of as practice; when you love what you’re doing and are good at it, you will put in the work when no one’s looking. You should be happy to be writing, like playing an instrument, or a sport.

“Once I start work on a project, I don’t stop and I don’t slow down unless I absolutely have to. If I don’t write every day, the characters begin to stale off in my mind — they begin to seem like characters instead of real people.” — Stephen King

You don’t have to start off at four hours, just start. Start at an hour each day, and build up momentum. And whatever you do, don’t stop.