You will no doubt have heard lots of writers say that it’s vital for you to write every day. Not everyone does, and there are undoubtedly plenty of authors who manage to make it work snatching writing time whenever they can as opposed to working to a specific schedule, but there are also undoubtedly benefits to making sure you write every day.

One of those benefits is that ‘little and often’ can sometimes be more manageable than ‘lots in one go’. Of course, if writing all weekend is the only option open to you, go for it. However, if you are able to fit in just a short amount of writing time every single day, such as half an hour at a time, the process of writing can become much more manageable and less daunting.

Simply put, it helps you to form a habit, and it’s easier to form a habit when you’re doing something every day as opposed to just a couple of times a week. After all, if you only write one or two days a week, it will be all too easy to change your days around, skip sessions telling yourself you’ll do it later in the week, and generally get behind on your plan. And before you know it, those one or two sessions a week might have disappeared altogether.

Writing every day can be a slog, but you will see the difference. It can also help us to be more professional in our writing, which is something we need if we’re going to make it to the end of our novels and move onto the next stage of the writing/publishing process.

Oddly, writing every day could also help you to prevent a brain drain. For instance, say you don’t write at all during the working week but then write for six hours on Sunday. Writing for so long once in a while can be great fun and wonderful for progress, but writing for so long every time we write can fast become tedious. Your brain becomes tired, and it becomes ever more difficult. You remember that difficulty and sitting down for your regular six hour marathon becomes less appealing next time around. By contrast, short bursts of writing every day can help your creative brain to stay fresh because you never work for long enough to get exhausted by it.

Different things work for different people. You might like longer, less regular sessions and if that’s something that works for you then great. But for many writers, particularly newer writers who are perhaps looking to finish their first major project, writing every day could well be much more conducive to progress.

And we can’t forget that writing is a job. It might not be our main job and we might do it mainly because it’s fun, but if we’re publishing our work in any form, we need to be clear that it is also work – and working on it every day can help with that mind-set.

What’s your view on the issue? Do you find it helps you to write every day or do you prefer to do things differently?