It’s not hard to see why this is advisable. During busy periods it’s easy to let writing slip to the bottom of the “to do” pile – or even to neglect it altogether. By making it part of your daily routine you ensure that the words in your head actually get put to paper in a timely fashion. You set a rule for yourself – to write every day – and this gives you permission to prioritize writing over other tasks.

Writing every day also has another great benefit: it helps you practice the creative process. There’s a name for the state of being completely absorbed in a task, and that name is “flow”. It’s often characterized by intense focus, productivity, and being “lost” or “carried away” by something that one is working on. It’s a state that writers are almost famous for struggling to achieve. How many times have you heard complaints about writers block? A lack of inspiration? “Stuckness”? All these are the same things: a lack of flow.

But, as with anything, it’s possible to practice achieving a state of flow – to get better and better at it until you can get there without hours of sitting staring at a blank screen and blinking cursor.

I discovered this for myself when, at the start of this year, I set myself a challenge: I would write and publish a short story for every single day of 2015. Three-hundred-and-sixty-five in all. It was an ambitious schedule, and I decided that the only way I would be able to meet it was by ensuring that I wrote at least something every single day.

I dedicated half an hour each morning to working on my daily fictions. During that half an hour I would sit at my computer and force myself to type. This might sometimes result in me finishing three stories, or it might sometimes result in me finishing none. Indeed, in the beginning, most of my writing sessions produced little that was useable. It was a real struggle to get my brain in gear and actually start putting words to paper. I was easily distracted, and many times the half hour would pass without me writing down a single word. As time went on though, it got noticeably easier. Just as with anything, practice makes perfect. By making sure that I wrote each and every day, I was practicing not just the process of writing, but the process of concentrating. I was practicing achieving a state of flow.

I noticed how much my routine helped me write most of all when I broke it. Twice, while traveling, I missed two or three days of writing. When I came back after the break, suddenly everything was much more difficult again. Once more I struggled to focus, lacked ideas, and couldn’t seem to get my stories to work. I couldn’t achieve that state of blissful focus that had carried me through the last few months of stories. It was a real struggle to re-establish my routine, and get back to being able to work productively again.

You can think of a routine as something that gains in momentum the longer you do it for. If you haven’t written a single word for the last three months, half an hour of writing might seem like a real struggle. If, however, you’ve been doing just that every day for the past five years it won’t be hard to carry on! It’s also worth noting that you don’t need to take a huge chunk out of your day-to-day activities in order to establish a routine. By spending just half an hour each day writing I’ve managed to add up a total of fifty-thousand words – almost a novel! Little chunks of time add up, and so little chunks are often all it takes. With that in mind, let me be the first to wish you luck in forming your new writing routine.

Bio: Krishan Coupland is on the Creative Writing PhD programme at the University of East Anglia. His writing has appeared in Ambit, Aesthetica, Litro and Fractured West. He publishes a story a day at unlikelyislands.blogspot.com. In his spare time he runs and edits a literary magazine.

Each issue has well chosen cover art. They publish a number of poems as well as reviews, interviews, and essays.

They have published a number of established and respected poets including Sherman Alexie, Alex Lemon, D.A. Powell, Thomas Lux, and Yusef Komunyakaa.

They reject the majority of what they receive, only publishing a small amount of the work that is submitted to them. Because of this having your work accepted by Smartish Pace is a great achievement and it can really help your reputation as poet.

They accept all submissions via email. You can submit up to six poems at a time. All poems should be submitted as an attachment. Attachments should be formatted as word documents.

They do not accept previously published poetry. They consider all poems that have appeared on the internet, even on social media or a personal blog, to be previously published.

If your poem is accepted, you will receive a copy of the issue it appears in as payment for publication.

To learn more about Smartish Pace visit their website here. To read their submission guidelines, visit that page here.

Ellechor Publishing is a Christian publisher of print and electronic books. They have good distribution, both online and in brick and mortar stores. They started in 2009, but they seem to have improved over time in terms of distribution and cover design. They publish Christian fiction and non-fiction.

Ellechor Publishing also has a vanity publishing arm, but they make it very explicit on their website which option is which, and they state very clearly that they would never reject manuscripts from one of the traditional imprints and refer them to the self/vanity publishing arm.

Another red flag: While the website  is well designed and easy to navigate, the main page is more targeted at authors than at readers.

That said, the shop section of the site was easy to navigate. The covers looked professionally done.

The one author who has spoken publicly about working with them has said good things in terms of editorial attention and communication. They have quite an extensive staff for such a small publisher. Also all their staff bios are listed online, which is helpful.

They try to respond to all manuscript submissions within a month. Because of this quick turn around time, they prefer that you do not simultaneously submit your manuscript elsewhere.

According to their website they “have a growing market for books slanted toward women’s concerns and toward the needs of singles and Youth in the church.”

They have a very extensive FAQ section on their website, which you should read if you are planning to submit your manuscript to them. To submit your manuscript to them please visit this page.

My response? Bull crap.

As an ancient and wise author once wrote, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Seriously, after thousands of years on planet Earth and gazillions of words written, is it truly possible to say anything that hasn’t been said by someone else?

Of course, if these “experts” mean don’t just regurgitate something old, I agree. If they mean you should work at presenting a different angle or perspective on a story or experience, absolutely. And if they’re encouraging a creative explosion of thoughts through words that are uniquely you, go for it.

My concern, however, is that too many of us too often find ourselves sitting in front of a blank screen striving to be original, and nothing’s happening. We can’t get past the little voice in our head telling us we’re boring and our words worn out. We spend (waste) a lot of time worrying about saying something no one has ever said before. How silly.

Unless you’re waiting for God to hand you words on tablets of stone, just write (you ain’t Moses).

I attempt to write every day. It’s a discipline that forces me to think and to create. If writing is a skill, and it is, then I need lots of practice to develop my craft. When inspired, I might write for hours; other times it might be for fifteen minutes and less than five hundred words. But writing regularly helps me develop as a writer.

Frankly, sometimes what I write is pathetic, and it will never see the light of day. I don’t even show it to my wife, and she likes me! When it’s not a pile of worthless junk, it’s still an accumulation of rough thoughts that will need editing . . . and then more editing. And occasionally, something wonderful happens in the process, and I feel like an artist who is overwhelmed by the beauty of something I created.

That being said, here’s my point: If I think that everything I write must end up as a one-of-a-kind-never-written-before masterpiece, then I’m in trouble. I’m dead before I start, and there will be no joy in the journey. Yes, writing is work, hard work, but creating should be fun too.

So here are my suggestions:

1. Whether you feel like it or not—write. Every day. When you feel stuck—write. When you feel uninspired—write. When you feel old, worn out and boring—write. Giving birth can be painful (ask any mom). Don’t wait for it to be easy. Don’t wait to be inspired to write; write to be inspired.

2. Stop worrying about being unique or original. What will make your words uniquely you are not brand-new-never-written-before thoughts, but old thoughts written with your particular paradigm and insight. I love this quote by W. H. Auden, “Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.”

3. Without apologies, take a great idea (already said or written by someone else) and add your story and your experience. Change the words. Turn the phrase. Make it you. But simply add your story to what’s certainly been said by others. By the way, that’s not plagiarism, that’s the path to creative greatness.

We writers are a strange breed. Something in us wants to be the next C.S. Lewis, Hemingway or Stephen King. Frankly, that quest can be debilitating. Without question, dream big and write bold, but don’t be stunted by a false belief that unless you come up with something new it’s worthless.

Just write on and let the readers determine your fate. You never know what might happen when you stay true to your calling. Remember, writers write.

(In Stupid Things Authors Believe, Part 2 we’ll take a look at the tendency to treat all of our words as sacred in the editorial process.)

Bio:

Kurt W. Bubna published his first book, Epic Grace: Chronicles of a Recovering Idiot, with Tyndale in 2013. He has also published Mr. & Mrs.: How to Thrive in Perfectly Imperfect Marriage, The Rookie’s Guide to Getting Published and a devotional. Bubna is an active blogger, itinerate speaker, regular radio and television personality, and the Sr. Pastor of Eastpoint Church, a large non-denominational congregation in Spokane Valley, Washington. He and his wife, Laura, have been married for nearly forty years and have four grown children and seven grandchildren.