Keeping Up One’s Writing Spirits

A lot of people ask me how I manage to constantly write. I’ve written over nine hundred articles for the Daily SPUF and have nearly 900 published stories and articles on my own site Phovos.net, yet somehow I am still constantly writing. I write at minimum 500 words every single day no matter what. Even when I spent all day at my local Comic Con last year, I still managed to write 500 words and publish that very article. I’ve been doing this for a while as well, since January 2016. 500 days minimum, every day since then.

Yet here I am, still writing.

I can see why people ask. That’s a lot of words. Way more than 365,000 words. Probably about half a million words considering that I generally tend to do more than 500 words. Actually, it’s pretty rare for me to do around 500 words, I tend to write about 600-700 words a day. Sometimes, if I’m on a roll or if I get a bee in my bonnet about a particular thing, I can do 1000-2000 words and not even notice. The day I wrote the updated Warframe Lore article? I wrote about 4000 words that day. The next day I continued the trend with another 1.5k words.

But those days aren’t common. Most of the time it’s about 650 words. Either a Daily SPUF article or a Phoviverse story. About a third of the time, I’ll do both, writing one of each, but I tend to go through phases of writing one or the other for a week, then switching round. I tend to be faster writing Daily SPUF articles because I have an idea and run with it, while Phoviverse stories tend to require me looking for previous stories because I can’t remember a background character’s name or something. But the opposite can happen as well, especially with me writing fluff stories right now while struggling with SPUF stuff.

Sometimes, it feels nigh impossible to manage 500 words though.

I’ll be honest, there’s no secret little trick I have. The only reason I continue writing, even though those roadblocks and brick walls, is because I’m stubborn. And I’ve programmed myself to think that I MUST write. After all, there is always a reason to write. The Daily SPUF, as the name suggests, is a blog with daily articles. That means I have to make sure there’s a new article every single day. More importantly, I can’t rely on other people, so I MUST write these articles myself.

It’s similar thinking with the Phoviverse. Not because I promised that I’d write daily stories, but because I’ve got a story or a scenario in my head that I MUST get down on paper. Otherwise it fizzles away and is gone for good.

I push on with my writing because I have to. Even if I don’t want to. If only I could be so disciplined in other things. If I took exercise as seriously as my need to write, I’d probably be really fucking attractive, rather than the hideous blob I am now.

What else helps though? What else keeps me writing? The voices in my head of course. I have an eternal, constantly chattering inner monologue that never, ever shuts up. Even in silence, there is always something in my head talking. Typing things out helps shut the voices up for a bit. No, I don’t recommend giving yourself brain damage to get voices in your head or something.

Other helpful things include having a keyboard that is easy to type on or a notebook that’s easy to write in, because you need to be comfortable while you are writing. A glass of water also helps. Or just any drink, really. I also recommend not deleting anything unless you’re rewriting it. All words are good. Especially if you’re going for quantity over quality. But even if you’re going for quality, you might want to use some old text later. Or maybe even repurpose and old story into something else. You never know! Sure that text might seem crap now, but maybe you’ll spruce it up later.

It’s also good to set some time to one side to write, just a little. Doesn’t have to be a lot of time. Even just five minutes to work out what you write, so you know what you are writing when you have proper time later. But setting up a routine is a big part of writing constantly.

Most importantly though, it’s important to take breaks. When I write, it is like a stream. Like water from a tap. But sometimes that tap gets turned off. So I take a break. I’ll come back to it later. There’s ALWAYS an opportunity to save what I am doing and do more writing later. The tap will get turned back on. It always does.

You see, it’s two things. On the one hand, it’s the sense of urgency, the need and desire to write, that keeps me going. But at the same time, it’s taking breaks and coming back to things later that also keeps me going. Sure, a break might mean this isn’t as good as I’d like, but that urgency will bring me back. As long as I don’t hit that Delete key too much

It’s all about balance.

Then again, there’s always an element of surprise about it all as well.

Like, this article is just over 900 words long. That totally caught me by surprise.