Daily Writing

A practice of writing text related to your project 15-30 minutes five to seven days per week (Martin 2011, drawing on work of Boice and Gray). Log time spent and new words written, and, at the end of each session, note possible topics for future Daily Writing. New words is important—editing, revising, and filling in citations can be done at another time in the day. Indeed, Daily Writing should lead to a release of energy for other research and writing work entailed by your project.

Start Daily Writing at the very start of your project. The words you write need not ever end up in the final written product, so it does not matter if your project is unclear at the start and changes as you go on. Note, however, that Daily Writing differs from Freewriting or Cameron's (2002) “Morning Pages.” Your Daily Writing words should be expository, composed as if you are presenting some points to an audience.

Cameron, J. (2002). The Artist's Way. New York: Tarcher.
Martin, B. (2011). Doing Good Things Better. Ed, Sweden: Irene Publishing.