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The Science-Backed Way to Write a Lot
Waiting for divine inspiration will get you nowhere
Writers engage in a lot of magical thinking related to our own productivity. Some of us believe we need special writing spots where the temperature, lighting, and ambient volume are supposedly perfect for courting our personal muses. Others are fastidious about which devices they use, or say they require a particular type of pen. Some writers believe they must be “inspired” before they can begin a project, and will wait weeks or even months for that feeling to arrive and put the creative gas in their engine.
A lot of writers also study (and fetishize) the writing habits of famous authors, believing that by emulating their strange habits, they will unlock their own wild, artistic potential. They’ll try all kinds of rituals in hopes of becoming more prolific: writing drunk and editing sober like Hemingway, scrawling rough drafts on napkins like J.K. Rowling, or running a 10K each morning like Murakami. These habits are the literary version of LARPing, allowing a creative type to feel close to the people they admire by pantomiming their lives. It can be fun, but it doesn’t promise productivity.
In fact, what each of these practices has in common is that they are self-defeating. By framing writing as something that can only happen under idealized circumstances, they provide a writer with endless excuses for why they can’t (or don’t have to) write. These beliefs also transform writing into a special, magical thing that happens to a writer when they’re lucky, rather than a behavior a person can choose to do regularly.
What actually makes a writer productive? To find the answer, it turns out we don’t have to romanticize famous authors, and we don’t have to create strange superstitions involving quiet nooks and special pens. There’s an entire body of scientific research that explains what steps a person should take in order to become more creative and productive. And I’m living proof that these steps work.
In his book, How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing, the psychologist and researcher Paul Silvia distills the research behind productive writing into a handful of easy-to-follow tips. I first picked up a copy of his book back in 2009 when I was…
