By Abdulraheem Jameel Ango
A good writing plan can transform your writing life. However, many authors emphasize the importance of not skipping a single writing session. Despite how useful this may sound, and regardless of how flawless our writing plan may look, this is not always possible. There are days when life happens, days when your energy feels drained, when putting words down doesn’t feel quite as magical as it always has been — these are the dreaded off days.
Off days are spontaneous obstacles — often unplanned for, that delay our writing progress. Much as we try to avoid them and while it’s possible to do so, the likelihood of having an off day still remains greater than not. So, perhaps rather than despise the headwinds we encounter, we can leverage their force to keep the wind in the sails.
Here are some ways to craft a realistic writing plan that makes your off days count:
Make Provisions For Them.
Even the best of plans can fail. As writers, we are well aware of this fact but it doesn’t always reflect in our approach to crafting writing plans. More often than not, our plans leave no room for setbacks and we choose to ignore any clues that suggest otherwise, this might be due to our inherent optimistic nature as humans.
However, an important step towards optimizing our off days is making provisions for them in our writing plans. The things we anticipate, no matter how challenging they may seem, rarely stall us. For example, many writers don’t write every day and even those who do, might have days that are reserved for breaks, these days that we don’t write aren’t viewed as setbacks simply for the fact that we’ve anticipated them and made them part of our plan. To adopt this approach for off days, you might focus on reaching weekly word counts or utilize quarterly goals. By following this approach you’ll continue making progress towards your objectives, regardless of off days, as they won’t throw you off course.
Off Days Shouldn’t Equal More Breaks.
A little more rest probably won’t cause any harm. Well it might, if you keep turning your off days into breaks. It’s common for us to turn off days into much-needed breaks especially after periods of intense work. This is totally fine, particularly when you genuinely need the rest — it can even help you return stronger and more focused. But you should try to avoid turning off days into prolonged breaks as this can affect your progress.
A good way to avoid this and stay on track, is to try and make up for the sessions you lose during an off day. For example, weekends are when I normally take my breaks, so when I do have an off day during the week, instead of dismissing it as another unexpected reprieve, I’ll try to make up for it during the weekend. It’s essentially just like swapping out the days. This way, I’ll keep making progress and moving towards my goals.
Additionally, you would want to avoid consecutive off days. An effective way to do this is to apply the two-day rule which states that you should never let two days pass without working towards your goal. So even if taking a break on an off day becomes necessary, you’d be able to prevent it from dragging on.
Action Drives Progress.
It’s not uncommon for off days to bear some fruit. Even if progress feels slow, sometimes we still manage to get some work done. It’s the nature of this “work” that matters. In his bestselling book Atomic Habits, author James Clear classifies work into two – action and motion. James describes any work that doesn’t produce a result as motion, he mentions things like planning, strategizing and learning as examples.
Based on Clear’ classification, we can classify writing activities such as brainstorming and seeking inspiration under motion. While these are all crucial aspects of the writing process, they don’t produce an immediate or final outcome — years of brainstorming won’t ever finish a manuscript if no writing is actually done. Yet we seem to focus more on these tasks, especially on off days. In the words of James Clear, we do this “because motion allows us to feel like we’re making progress without running the risk of failure”. In other words, we stay in motion as an excuse to avoid or delay confronting the real work we’re supposed to get done.
Think about the times you spent a whole day seeking inspiration fully aware that you could easily finish a chapter once you get in front of the screen. I had a similar experience when I spent three consecutive days preparing to write the perfect scene for my novel, even though I knew that it wasn’t possible to sit down in front of my screen for that long without getting something down.
Rather than staying in motion and deceiving ourselves that we’re making progress when we’re actually just postponing work, we should try as much as possible to get some action done. Action produces results — it is the opposite of motion, when you’re finishing a chapter or editing one, you’re getting some action done. Below are some methods that help me perform active work:
- Lower your daily word count: as the off day might have been caused by pressure from completing your daily goals. For example, instead of writing my usual 700 words, I try to write just 400 (or under) on an off day. This way, I find writing on my off days less daunting, while still maintaining progress.
- Adjust your schedule. If you planned on writing today and editing tomorrow, edit today and write tomorrow. If you plan on editing in the morning and writing in the evening, try writing in the morning and editing in the evening. Sometimes your mind might not be ready for the work currently scheduled, but making a few adjustments can help you ease into it.
Keep in mind that while motion is crucial for making progress, action Is what actually sustains it. To make the most out of an off day, prioritize getting some action done.
Set better deadlines.
A valid concern regarding off days is that they increase the risk of missing deadlines. A solution to this is to set better deadlines. A deadline that’s too lenient can encourage procrastination, potentially leading to a series of off days. Conversely, one that’s too tight might cause excessive pressure which can also lead to more off days. The Obvious and ideal solution is to find a balance between the two.
This can be achieved by setting deadlines that focus on finishing work before a specified date as opposed to on or after it. An example of this is a deadline for finishing a chapter “before the end of the month”. While technically even the first day of the month qualifies as before “the end of the month”, putting it this way creates a stronger sense of urgency.
I’ve found that this approach works better than a deadline that allows you to finish “by next month” or “before next month” as you’re more likely to be flexible with this kind of deadline if a few off days set you back. Consider how quickly you will sign up for a program or turn a paper in, if the deadline read ‘before January 1st” rather than “by January 1st”.
In Conclusion
When off days pull you into rough waters, I hope you find the above strategies helpful in navigating through them with your sails aloft and your writing journey on course.
Bio: Abdulraheem Jameel has an incurable obsession with mystery and an undying fascination with beautiful sunsets. After several unsuccessful attempts, he is currently working on his first crime thriller.
