Digging for Gold

Introduction

I just got back form the gym and I’m tired and achy, but I feel alive. Often you hear stories about how you must write every day, preferably a thousand words or more, but how often have you heard the truth?

Quality not Quantity

Those thousand words, or whatever your goal is, will seldom win the Pulitzer. But you keep at it every day doing a bit better than yesterday and when you look up there’s that article, or WIP you’ve been meaning to complete, all finished.

Anyone can write every day, but not everyone can make it count. You have to sift through those crappy pieces to find bits of gold that will become your magnum opus.

Be a Hoarder

Save everything you write because you never know when that phrase or paragraph will come in handy later. Also this is a good exercise in charting your growth as a writer. I’m often amazed, good and bad, at pieces I wrote earlier. Especially in terms of how my outlook on life has changed as I’ve gotten older.

Once is a Fluke. Twice, a Coincidence. Three Times, a Pattern Emerges

If you find yourself writing about the same topic maybe it’s time to collect those pieces and begin writing a book or find new topics to write about.

Conclusion

Fret not. What you write isn’t as important as how you write it. We all have off days, the important thing is to keep trying until you strike literary gold.