On Consistency

I was at the gym this morning and decided that instead of my usual diet of pushups, I'd test my bench press to see where it was sitting. I switched my routines a few months back, changing from heavy lifting of a single muscle group each day of the week to a more full-body routine done daily, but much, much lighter. It's felt like one of the stranger programs I've ever done because on a daily basis, I don't feel like I've done very much, but over the course of a week, it turns out I've lifted a lot.

The proof is in my lifts. Despite what feels like "doing nothing" most days, I put up more volume on the bench this morning than I've ever done before.

As always, it was easy to extend the metaphor to writing. When people learn that I've written over 40 books, one of the first questions they ask is "how?" Occasionally, it seems they are hoping for a secret, but I fear my answer is always disappointing because it's just consistency.

First, I've been doing this full-time for ten years. It's my job that I go to every day, and I'm fortunate I can put more hours in than others who are balancing other working commitments. The truth is, I don't feel like I write that much every day. It's usually somewhere between 2-3,000 words, spread out over about four hours of writing. I tend to write short books (by Epic Fantasy standards), and we'll call the average about 80,000, which means I have a draft written roughly every 40 workdays or so.

Life and parenting consume plenty of time, and plenty of unexpected time, so it's not as clean as that, but it probably means it's about 50 working days to draft a novel.

And so the answer isn't anything special, it's simply showing up, day after day, for years.

The answer is the same for everyone. I'm incredibly fortunate to be able to write for as long as I do, but back in the days before I was doing this full-time, I still sat down and wrote 500–1000 words every morning before I went to work, and that still adds up to at least 2 healthy sized books a year (just drafting — editing and preparation are a whole other bucket).

I don't really believe in the "write every day" mindset, at least not as universal advice. It works for some and not for others, and that's fine. Consistency to me means never missing many days in a row. It's about always coming back and adding a little more.

Repeat often enough, and a book is well on its way to being born.