Everybody Writes, 2nd Edition



2Writing Is a Habit, Not an Art

Each morning I am awakened gently by the sweet calls of downy-throated songbirds, welcoming me to a new day.

I arise and dine on a firm scramble of eggs laid at dawn by my cluck of heirloom chickens. I sip coffee from the rarest Kopi Luwak bean, harvested deep in the Sumatran jungle.

It's hand-picked.

By monkeys.

So after that … you can imagine that I flit to my desk, dip the nib of my fountain pen in its corner inkwell … and the insights spill out of me onto the page with the same intensity as the golden yolks of those heirloom eggs spread across my breakfast plate.¹

* * *

Only part of that is true.

We're tempted to think that writing is an art, that only a chosen lucky few can do it well. But that's an excuse—a rationalization that lets the lazy off the hook for being the communication equivalent of a couch potato: Flabby. Unmotivated. Inarticulate.

The truth is that key to becoming a better writer is to be a more productive one. The key to being a better writer is to write.

You'd think that great writers would have special inspiration or special rituals or the perfect conditions to boost their output—like what I tried to pass off as my routine above.

My coffee is not picked by a team of monkeys. I have zero chickens and no songbirds.

Only this part is true: I start each day by writing.

* * *

Many of the world's best-known writers stressed regular routines and schedules for writing. Charles Dickens, Ernest ...