Yes, I’m a writer. Yes, I don’t write.
This meme floated across my Twitter homepage sometime last year, and I never felt more validated. Though I was pursuing a BFA in Creative Writing, and it would presumably become my career, I never wrote unless a deadline ordained it. I was a “fake” writer, unlike the John Boynes and Mickey Spillanes of the world. And it seemed I wasn’t the only one.
In that thread, I discovered hundreds of kindred spirits who couldn’t muster the strength, courage, or time to write. We bonded over our unwritten stories and our inability to become “real” writers. These conversations were laced with humor, but the reality of this feeling is anything but.
In September last year, I sat on my bed, trying to quell the shakiness of my fingers. The phone was ringing, and I prayed that my father wouldn’t pick up. When he did, I squeezed my eyes shut as I blurted out: “I think I need an extra semester.”
I had planned to graduate a semester early, like most of my classmates. But as I steamrolled towards that deadline, my future became more and more unclear. At the root of my doubts was the feeling that I wasn’t a real writer—I had no publications to my name, and my attempts at long projects always ended a thousand words in. This, I realized, wasn’t the attitude of someone destined to be a writer. That same day, I dropped a literature class and picked up a philosophy minor, telling people that I would pursue the latter instead. It made me feel safe, instead of like a failure.
The answers I sought were often unhelpful in fixing my lack of inspiration. Searching online yielded a plethora of articles advising writers to simply find more motivation in nature, by observing others, or with prompts. In a now-deleted article, “Inspiration is Everywhere,” Jun Wu advocated searching for more motivation while simultaneously acknowledging its shortcomings:
“How can we sustain inspiration? Sustaining inspiration is actually the wrong question to ask. Inspiration is a small burst of ‘ah-ha moment.’ The right question to ask is how to sustain the effort of actualizing your inspiration.”
The latter question is the one that always returns either nebulous or unfavorable answers. Wu struggles to provide a concrete solution, advising readers to find more time and build “intrinsic motivation”—the very problem I was trying to solve. In my college writing classes, the professors offered similar wisdom: if we wanted it badly enough or were truly meant for writing careers, we would figure out a way to make our stories happen.
This advice left me feeling more defeated than inspired. I almost closed the chapter on my writing career entirely, conceptualizing “real” writers as magical creatures who possessed an innate “it factor” that I lacked.
But as I began my journey toward philosophy last fall, I found myself reflecting on my creative writing career and all of my failed short stories and novels. On my Google Drive, I had dozens of documents reflecting my doubts – some lasting one paragraph, one sentence, or even just a title. What stopped me from writing?
The answer revealed itself gradually. Many of my problems stemmed from relying on short bursts of inspiration. I would become overwhelmed by my ideas, writing thousands of words in one sitting, and then I would be too burnt out to continue. Concentrating all of my efforts into marathon writing sessions didn’t work.
Then, it hit me: Write in small doses every day instead.
At first, I committed myself to writing five hundred words a day, but as a full-time college student, that proved too strenuous. So I cut it down to four hundred—still too much. Throughout that month, I modified my strategy until I found the perfect amount: 250 words a day.
This number seems laughable at first glance. Stephen King writes ten times that amount. But let’s calculate: if you consistently write 250 words per day, you will have 91,250 words by the end of the year. That’s a novel, and then some. The strategy is deceptively simple, but the numbers don’t lie – writing this little per day is incredibly productive.
Why did this work so well for me? For writers, attacking long-form projects can be especially daunting because we anticipate spending hours each day on them, time we may not have. However, to meet this daily word count, I typically spend fifteen to twenty minutes writing before going to bed. It isn’t a big commitment, which makes it easy to maintain consistently.
Another benefit of this strategy is that it removes the dependence on inspiration. Instead of solely relying on those elusive creative “evocations” that Wu describes, writers can be motivated by the existence of a daily deadline and its attainability. The strategy brings us much closer to being truly “intrinsically motivated,” especially as we see results accumulate over time.
This approach completely changed my attitude toward writing. No longer did I feel burned out when I wrote. No longer did I feel intimidated by starting my novel, an idea that had resided in my mind for years. Yesterday, I scrolled through my first draft and saw that I’d reached eighty-five pages, making it my longest work ever, and tears filled my eyes.
I am a writer. Now, I’m researching master’s programs for creative writing and considering dropping my philosophy minor. My path has finally become clear.
So, to the aspiring writer reading this, I implore you to abandon the thought that you are somehow a “fake” writer. You are every bit real – you just haven’t found your methodology yet.
Give mine a try, and see where it takes you.
Zoe Briscoe is a creative writer and a graduate from Emerson College.
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