I hate being told to write every day.

Even Ray Bradbury once wrote, “You must write every single day of your life.” And as someone who is hungry to find success with my words, I used to take that to heart and berate myself when I hadn’t gotten words on the page at the end of the day.

But who am I to argue with Ray Bradbury? Absolutely nobody. Yet I’m still gonna do it. (I’m also hoping the quote is taken out of context, but I haven’t done the research.)

My friend Dorie is the first writing friend I ever made. Besides being a lovely person, she’s very wise. We talked about what a ridiculously hard “rule” writing every day is—how unforgiving and rigid and guilt-inducing and just plain unrealistic it is.

So I present to you Dorie’s brilliant advice: Do something writing-related every day. And I maintain that doing something writing-related every day is just as valid as writing every day. Because our brains love to work on things in the background, so in my thinking, the more writing-related things you feed your brain with, the more productive your writing will be when you do have a legitimate moment to write. But also, we’re real people. We have stuff to do, and we get tired/sick/busy.

I hope this takes some guilt off your already-overburdened shoulders today—we are all dealing with enough.

Activities that count as writing for the day (do at least one, and this list is not exhaustive):

1. Daydreaming (for funsies, for your next scene, or completely unrelated to writing)
2. Creating a playlist or aesthetic that goes with your current or future story
3. Plotting a story (on paper or in your head)
4. Reading or watching TV/movies (to learn about characterization and story structure, for idea generation, or honestly just to relax)
5. Reading a writing craft book or article (Hey! I helped you hit your writing-related quota today!)
6. Actually writing (you know I kinda had to put it on the list)
7. Brainstorming names for characters
8. Picking out faceclaims for your characters
9. Agent/publisher/self-pub research
10. Working on a query letter
11. Writing a synopsis of your story (can be a prewriting task)
12. Talking to yourself to work through a problem you’re stuck on in your story
13. Watching an online video related to book research (actual examples of mine include a time lapse of a pea seed sprouting and a quick video about black holes)
14. SELF. CARE.
15. NAPPING (because we’re all dang tired—plus you might dream a great story idea. Ya never know.)
16. Talking to a friend or family member (doesn’t have to be about writing—this is good for stress relief, idea generation, fun, or if they’re a writing friend, writing stuff)
17. Generating new ideas for a new project (more posts upcoming about ways to do this)
18. LIVING YOUR LIFE in whatever way your day and your sanity needs. Because not only is life experience  a fruitful writing mine, but more importantly, I hope you give yourself some grace.

What would you add to the list? (Remember, there’s no right or wrong, babe.)