Advice: On Maintaining A Daily Writing Practice

Originally posted 4/17/2012.

your favorite writers

always tell you 
to write
to keep writing 

your favorite writers

are going to tell you to write all the time

because they claim they did and you

(following along in their wake

like sweet little sleep deprived interns

in the Hospital Of Broken Hearts)

ought to damn well do the same

your favorite writers

are going to tell you to write every day

tell you to churn thirty poems in thirty days

or a novel in a month

because that’s how it works

when the Fire is on them

that’s how they get to be favorite writers

the poor slobs

that’s how they get to be famous

one month of crazy at a time

maybe for a few months at a time

and voila

the New Hotness doth arrive

your favorite writers will tell you

all sorts of things

to disguise the fact that they don’t have a clue

as to how this works 

they agitate for cause and effect

because not to is to suggest

a case for werewolves vampires

ghosts and zombies

not as literary devices and archetypes

but as the horrid afterbirth 
of their own failed work

listen:

if your gut tells you the best thing for your writing

is to take a month off
square your taxes

screw your neighbor hugely for hours at a time

walk your mother in the park

watch a lot of television

and drink

 you owe it to yourself to try that

because when I look at my favorite writers

I see more of that 
than the cold and sober work they prescribe

for all the whippersnappers and upstarts

formulas are for chemists and physicists

writers suck at those things mostly

write when you want

how you want

where you want

and for God’s sake
take a shower
eat a sandwich 
and try to get some sleep