#0059 The Daily Writing Conundrum

You have to write every single day to be a writer, right?

Ever since I started reading about the craft of writing, I’ve absorbed the advice to write every day. Sometimes the wise words instructed to set aside a segment of time. Sometimes the missives recommended minimum word-count goals. The roundups of famous writers and their daily outputs gave glimpses to aspire to. The glib sayings — “butt in chair” ; “shitty first draft” — were shared to make daily writing feel attainable.

I tried. Oh how I struggled to start and to keep writing on the daily. And I have failed miserably. I used to beat myself up, wondering why I couldn't follow a writing plan, questioning if I had anything worth sharing with the world. 

Have you ever fallen into the daily writing conundrum?

When I searched the stock photography using the word “conundrum,” this is the only image that came up. (Source: Photo by Jessica Pamp on Unsplash)

When writing the headline last night, I checked Merriam-Webster to be sure I was using conundrum correctly. 

Conundrum, noun
1a: an intricate and difficult problem
b: a question or problem having only a conjectural answer
2: a riddle whose answer is or involves a pun (as in "Why didn't the lost hikers starve in the desert? Because of the sand which is there.")

I definitely view daily writing mantras as a difficult problem full of intricacies so often glossed over. So, yes, definition 1a I believe holds true. 

Though so many people sharing advice do not view daily writing as something full of guesswork that can only be inferred, I definitely believe trying to write every day is akin to comprehending the quantum realm from a first-person perspective.¹ For me, definition 1b is accurate.

Did you do a double take with definition 2? I know I did. Which is what compels me to include the dictionary editors’ “Did you know?” segment:

We can only conjecture the exact origin of conundrum. What is known is that the word has been in use since the 1600s, and that it had various spellings, such as conimbrum, quonundrum, conuncrum, and quadundrum, before the current spelling was finally established in the following century. One theory of origin suggests that the word was coined as a parody of Latin by students at Oxford University, where it appears to have enjoyed particular popularity in its "word play" or "pun" sense. While the prevalent sense in this century is that of the seemingly unanswerable question or problem, frequently applied to heady dilemmas involving ethics, sociology, or economics, the word is sometimes so loosely applied to anything enigmatic as to be synonymous with puzzle or mystery.

OMG! I can totally envision those Oxford bros kicking back in their high-falutin dormitories, drinking too much and coming up with bawdy “quonundrums” to harass the maids with. Ugh. 

I truly don’t know how this image is connected to the search term “quantum.” Algorithms work in mysterious ways… (Photo by Ksenia Makagonova on Unsplash)

Back to the conundrum of daily writing. When I used to beat myself up for not reaching a word-count goal or for not writing every day of a month or a week (Inner Critic anyone?), I didn’t take into consideration my chemo brain. There was a reason I couldn’t do what some typical writers could. 

Though I’m still saddled with chronic pain and fatigue (long-term side effects of life-saving blood cancer treatments), I now cut myself some slack. I cannot calendar flares. Sometimes I can’t even predict from one hour to the next if I’ll need to rest and recuperate. Such is life, which is still worth living.

To all those examples of famous authors with their daily rituals adding up to a bombastic number of pages or words: why set up (often newbie) writers to compare themselves with exceptional outliers? 

I do not live in another century or on another continent. I am not a hetero white man with a doting second (or fifth) wife feeding and watering me. I do not ignore my child to write when they’re with me (half-time, joint custody). I cannot count on receiving affordable healthcare for my preexisting conditions in the future, which is overwhelming and distracts me from writing. Other topics that clog the cogs in my writing brain: The climate crisis. The imperative for universal shelter. Wondering why so many are opposed to livable wages and guaranteed incomes. The hope for free higher education for my kiddo and the rest of Gen Z/Alpha. I could go on.²

What I’ve come to realize is that writing every day doesn’t work for me in my circumstances. Maybe it does for you. Or maybe it will be the thing that pushes you beyond Imposter Syndrome and sets you on the path to complete your WIP. 

Before we can stack up our rejections, it’s important to occasionally pause to contemplate the paths we choose to take along the way.

Next time: Is the cliché of the lonely and depressed creative true?

1. Watching Marvel movies doesn’t count.

2. I really wanted to wrap up this doomsday list with a punny riddle to call back to conundrum definition 2, but my mind didn’t cooperate in time.