How to NOT Write Every Day for a Year

There was once a time I flexed my creative writing skills on the daily and now my ability to sit down and put pen to paper is so rusty that I think I can hear my knuckles squeaking as I type. So how did I go from a daily writer to a never writer? Allow me to share my wisdom.

Step 1: Question your ability

Think about all the rejections you’ve had. Don’t be shy, there are plenty of them! Remember the sinking, squirming, burning, aching sensations in your stomach and chest when those rejection emails came through. Concentrate on them. Concentrate hard.

Feels awful, doesn’t it? It makes you want to curl into a ball like a hedgehog and peek your nose out only when someone proffers you food.

It makes you wonder why you’re wasting your time writing down these silly symbols into silly strings to form silly words which grow into silly sentences and then evolve slowly and painfully into even sillier paragraphs.

It makes you believe the only thing you should write is a 10,000-word apology letter, which you can then print and bind carefully with a protective plastic cover, and ship to every agent and editor you have ever sent your work to in an attempt to appease your guilt for wasting their time.

At this point, it’s helpful to think about all the acceptances you’ve had. There are fewer of them (naturally!) but they’re there all the same. Feel a little bolstered for a while, and then consider how many rejections it took to reach that poor smattering of acceptances. Allow yourself to shrivel into a hedgehog ball once again.

Consider the stories/articles/poems that were accepted. Ask yourself, were they really all that good? Or were the journals/publications/websites that accepted them simply desperate for content that month and willing to temporarily lower their standards enough that your work was passable?

It was probably the latter, because you know damn well that those stories were heaping, steaming, writhing piles of anxious hedgehog droppings. You’re sure the editors of those journals/publications/websites were probably having an off day when they accepted your work. In fact, they probably ought to receive a copy of your 10,000-word apology letter, which they can then publish in their journal/publication/website to apologise to any of their readers who were unlucky enough to stumble upon your writing.

Vow never to write again. Not only is it futile, but it might even be harmful to humankind.

Step 2: Don’t read

Reading is important for writers. It stokes the flames of the imagination. It inspires them to attempt to tell tales as engaging and gripping and moving as the writers who have come before them. That’s exactly why you shouldn’t read if you want to not write every day.

Don’t read a single word. Not even the back of a cereal box. Instead, pick up your phone, open the YouTube app, and scroll endlessly through videos of dogs being dogs, cats being cats, and capybaras eating giant pumpkins.

Be soothed temporarily by these gentle scenes of sweet animals who have nothing to worry about other than when their caretakers are going to bring them their next snack. Wish you were one of these animals. Wonder which of them you would want to be if you had the opportunity to shapeshift — my vote is on capybara — and then become that animal as best you can. In my case, this involves soaking myself in the bath for several hours before taking a long period of sitting and staring into space.

Reading reminds you of how little writing you’ve been doing, and this induces shame.

Reading reminds you of how terrible a writer you are in comparison to every other writer on this planet, and this induces shame.

Reading reminds you of the books you have self-published that you vaguely recall you were once proud of and now can’t remember why, and this induces shame.

Reading convinces you that every piece of your own writing that you have ever made public is atrocious, and this induces shame.

Shame is painful and nauseating and we want to avoid it at all costs. We’d rather be numb. So we become the capybara and we sit in the bath and we stare into space.

Step 3: Don’t go out into the world

The world is interesting. We need to fill our minds with interesting things in order to have things to write about. It is vital that you do not go out into the world if you are trying not to write.

Do not travel. Do not visit new places. Do not interact with other humans either, because other humans — having lived in the interesting world — are also interesting, and we want to avoid interesting things at all costs so that we have nothing to write about.

Do not spend time with your friends. Do not respond to their texts. Do not speak to other humans on your daily dog walks. Do not do your shopping in person but instead order everything you need online, and do not under any circumstances make small talk with the delivery driver when they fetch parcels to your door.

Become so unfamiliar with other humans that you cease to even be able to communicate with them. Embrace social anxiety. Do nothing to challenge it. Tell yourself you’ve always been an introvert, anyway. Tell yourself that you like time alone.

Whenever you feel sad about your aloneness simply curl up into that hedgehog ball. Remind yourself that hedgehogs are solitary creatures and tell yourself that’s exactly how you’re meant to be. (Don’t think about being a capybara at this point, because capybaras live in large groups like vivacious social butterflies, and mulling this fact over makes you feel nothing but shame that capybaras have more vibrant social lives than you do.)

A global pandemic will aid in the process of not going out into the world, and thus in the process of not doing any writing. Rest uneasy that even when things go “back to normal” that they will never be normal again. By “things” I mean your brain, for your brain has now developed a fear of people so intense that your heart hammers whenever you get notification of a new text from a kind friend, and that hammering heart feeling is so distracting that you couldn’t possibly do any writing while it’s happening.

You might wonder whether writing about this social anxiety might be helpful both for your mental health and your writing chops. Stop right there. You are now in the danger zone of genuinely thinking about doing some writing.

Step 4: Rinse and repeat

There’s hope on the horizon. You have ideas for stories. It’s cathartic just to imagine yourself spilling your thoughts out of your head and onto a page by way of these silly symbols. You feel a little something other than numbness, shame, and loneliness. You feel… almost… positive?

It’s strange. Unfamiliar. You know you ought to like this feeling of positivity, but you can’t help but think about how it will probably be such a fleeting thing there that is little use in feeling it at all.

The solution? Return to step one with the utmost haste. Rinse and repeat daily for a year.

Congratulations — you are a writer that doesn’t write. And also sort of a hedgehog and sort of a capybara.