“Write a page a day and in one year you’ll have written a book,” they say.
I’ve heard this piece of wisdom many times by many people to the point it can’t be attributed to anyone. I’ve even been known to share it myself, because it makes such simple sense. If you write alongside a day job as I do, getting that one page down is often all you can manage. But what if writing even one page a day turns out to be too much?
Lots of things can happen to derail you over the course of twelve months. Last fall, I was on a roll. I spent the summer writing the first in what I hoped to be a series of six graphic novels. Just as I started work on the second book, life took an unexpected turn. My partner suddenly developed an infection in his leg, which required tons of medical appointments, two surgeries, a long hospital stay, and many months of recuperation.
Plans for the graphic novel series went out the window. Overnight, I became my partner’s main caregiver and took over the entire task of running our home while keeping up with my day job. There simply wasn’t time, energy, or brainpower to write more than a few words a day, let alone a whole page.
When life finally calmed down and I began to adapt to my new reality, I was desperate to find a way to write again, if only for the sake of my sanity. As I tried various methods like switching between computer, tablet, and paper, or writing at different times of the day (oftentimes in the middle of the night when stressful thoughts kept me awake), I made an amazing discovery. While I couldn’t focus on writing one page every day, I could certainly manage one single paragraph.
As it so happens, short pieces are made up of a small number of paragraphs. If you tackle one paragraph a day, by the end of a week or two, you’ll have completed a short piece of writing ready for submission. Even if you miss a day here and there, you’ll still stay on track fairly easily.
Luckily, I enjoy writing anything short, whether articles, stories, personal essays, recipes, or activities. And unlike book-length manuscripts, these shorts don’t require that you store a massive amount of information in your head in order to keep track of characters, scenes, and sub-plots. Surprisingly, working on these daily paragraphs helped me in unexpected ways. When I wrote in waiting rooms, I could escape my surroundings for a while and keep my stress levels manageable. During long boring drives to and from the hospital, I found myself staying alert by tweaking sentences in my mind or coming up with ideas for the next paragraph. This exercise also gave me something to look forward to when my morale needed a hefty boost. Last but not least, I was able to sell work and meet deadlines.
As for my graphic novel series, after an eight-month pause, I’m back to work on the second book while continuing to write and submit short pieces using my daily paragraph habit. In fact, as I was writing this, I also faced two article assignments. Now that I’ve grown accustomed to publication in magazines and newsletters on a regular basis with minimal effort, waiting a whole year to finish a book-length manuscript doesn’t hold the same appeal. These easier projects are helping make the process a lot more fun, not to mention more lucrative.
Want to join the paragraph-a-day club? Jump right in, however crazy your life might be!
Bio: Pascale Duguay is a freelance writer, school librarian, and translator (French/English). She resides in the lively bilingual community of Quebec’s Eastern Townships. Pop in for a visit at pascaleduguay.com
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