Master Hemingway’s 500-Word Writing Habit
Four Essential Tips to Cultivate Your Daily Writing Practice
500 words a day. Let that be your effort for the day. If you write five days a week, you’ll have 130,000 words a day at the end of the year. That’s a lot of words. Hemingway wrote 500 words a day, and look where that got him.
When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again. — Hemingway
That doesn’t mean you can’t write more words, but start at 500. It’s beyond word count; it’s about your effort for the day. It’s a mindset. Suppose you write daily five days a week; then you’re more apt to keep writing. You’ll create a habit. And writing is as much a habit as it is a practice.
Merriam-Webster defines a habit as
: an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary
