Writers aren’t the mildly ambitious kind.
Give us a notebook and ten uninterrupted minutes, and we will cheerfully plan a twelve-book fantasy series, a memoir in several volumes, three Substacks, daily journaling, a consistent social media presence and a side project on Shakespearean symbolism while we’re at it.
On Sunday, this all seems perfectly reasonable.
Tuesday has other ideas.
Tuesday arrives carrying laundry, deadlines, unanswered emails and a strange fatigue that wasn’t part of the plan. By Tuesday evening, the beautiful (color coordinated) schedule lies in picturesque ruins. We stare at it, feeling betrayed.
We blame ourselves for being utter sloths. We accuse ourselves of lacking discipline. We promise to try harder next week. Some people buy a new planner. Others watch videos on productivity. A few of us create colour-coded (ah, those colors, I tell you!) spreadsheets. It all feels wonderfully responsible and active.
And then Tuesday happens again.
I don’t think the problem is ambition. Ambition is useful. It gives us direction. It is hard to imagine a writer without grand dreams. Most of us have them.
The trouble begins when we design routines for imaginary people.
You know the sort of person I mean. The one who wakes up at five, writes a thousand words before breakfast, exercises, reads Tolstoy before lunch and somehow retains enough energy to answer emails without muttering dark things under their breath.
This person may exist. I have no evidence either way.
What I do know is that they are not me.
And they are not you either. How do I know? I just know, okay? Let’s leave it at that.
Real people are inconsistent. They get tired. They have jobs, families and unforeseen irritations. They occasionally lose heart. They have days when writing feels as appealing as filing your ITR. The portal is open, btw… just sayin’.
Any writing habit that assumes otherwise is built on a rather shaky foundation.
Which is why I have developed a great affection for modest ambitions.
They are not inspiring, quite the opposite. They often sound dull and boring.
- Write for fifteen minutes.
- Finish one paragraph.
- Describe a childhood memory.
- Write fifty-five words.
Nobody boasts about writing fifty-five words. Nobody announces proudly that they managed ten minutes before dinner. Such achievements lack grandeur. And we writers don’t like to touch things which aren’t bristling with grandeur.
But those homy things possess one enormous advantage. They survive.
A grand routine interrupted for three days becomes a source of guilt. A small routine interrupted for three days is easy to resume. In the long run, resuming matters more than intensity.
Most skills are built this way. Musicians practise scales. Athletes repeat drills. Painters fill sketchbooks with studies nobody will ever frame.
That work is not glamorous, it is plodding, dull mind-numbing work.
We imagine breakthroughs arriving with trumpets and flashes of inspiration. More often, they arrive disguised as ordinary Tuesdays and small acts repeated often enough to matter.
Grand plans fail because they are trying to solve the wrong problem.
Writers don’t need more heroic intentions.
We need habits sturdy enough to survive real life.
The question isn’t, “What would an ideal writer do?”
The question is, “What can this slightly distracted, occasionally discouraged and gloriously imperfect human being do again tomorrow?”
That answer wasn’t impressive, was it? Good.
Writing is not an Olympic event. It is a practice. And practices, like shoes and marriages, should be comfortable enough to last. If you’re serious about taking small challenges, you should join The Write Place Community where we keep the fire stoked with doable challenges.
Remember, only in the dictionary success come before survival.
Mother of three adult humans. An idealistic, outspoken woman of scrupulous integrity, in love with words. A storyteller who enjoys crocheting tales.
And a passionate bibliophile, of course.