Becoming a Writer: Writing Everyday

I have been writing a long time; however, I have never had a set schedule. I wrote when I felt like it, but this was getting me nowhere. Then, I read Dorothy Brande’s book, On Becoming A Writer. Brande recommends putting a pen and tablet next to your bed, and upon awakening, write fifteen minutes. This morning writing, she says, should be stream of consciousness writing – write about anything. She calls this “harnessing the unconsciousness.” Brande also instructs the writer to schedule another part of the day to write for fifteen minutes again, but at a different hour each day. Why? The unconscious, she warns, “prefers to choose its own occasions and emerges as it likes.” The point is to write every day no matter what , and to teach yourself to write at any given moment.. The muse is a bewildering creature, but if I show up every day to write, she visits more frequently and more powerfully. At some point, the writing will become more fluent; however, until it does, Brande insists on “early morning writing and writing by prearrangement.”


Besides writing every day, the muse must be fed. I love Ray Bradbury’s essay on the muse, “ How to Keep and Feed the Muse.” The muse, he says, is fed by our experiences –what “we stuff ourselves with.” I stuff myself with poetry, essays, stories, plays, movies, music, art, long walks, fishing, traveling, photography – anything I love. The muse is a creature which craves experiences, and as Bradbury says, “Nothing is ever lost.”. At some point, what you have stuffed yourself with will be used later. Bradbury urges the writer to be hungry for experiences.


So, now I am going to eat some poems and keep my writing appointment.