Writing Gains Are Made on Rep Days

If you've ever lifted weights or been in a room with someone who does, you know there is one thing that everyone loves to do and talk about. Whether we're talking about Olympic weightlifters or powerlifters, they all love max days and hitting PRs (personal records). They love pulling heavy deadlifts and massive snatches. In other words, lifting heavy shit. It feels great, and there's nothing like that adrenaline rush. But guess what? PRs don't happen overnight or by accident. They happen because of hard work and hours spent doing the stuff no one really wants to do. In other words, PRs happen because of rep days.

How This Applies to Writing
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​But we're not talking about weightlifting. We're talking about writing. I've compared writing to working out many times, and I hold that there are tons of similarities. In both disciplines, hard work = awesome gains. Whether the goal is to lift heavier or write captivating words, the only way to achieve goals is to put in the work.

Just like lifters, writers love max days—those days when everything comes together. Maybe that means writing an amazing sentence or scene, one that brings you to tears. Maybe that means writing The End on your first manuscript or a piece that may be your magnum opus. Regardless, we don't get to experience these moments without putting in the "reps."

What Are Rep Days?
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For lifters, rep days mean loading light weights on the bar and repping it out until you're entirely sick of whatever exercise you're doing. You may do eight sets of eight squats or deadlifts. Or you may break down your clean and jerk form and do one piece of the movement with just the bar—over and over and over. For example, hip contact is important to a good snatch. I'll spend days doing nothing but hip contact drills until I'm black and blue. It's not fun, and it's not glamorous. But guess what? Next time I do snatches, my form is better and I lift heavier weight.
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Rep Days for Writers
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For writerly folk, rep days may be big word count days. Or they may be those days when we just don't want to do it. For whatever reason, we don't feel like writing, but we sit down and do it anyway. Writing on those days strengthens our writing "muscles" so that on the days we do feel like writing, when the words are flowing, we're able to write more and better than we would have otherwise.

I've often noted the need to build my writing "stamina." If I take a break from writing, even a few days, I find it difficult to write more than a few hundred words at a time. The next day, I write a bit more, and the next day a bit more. And eventually I'm writing 2k words a day easily. My stamina is built up, and my momentum carries over day after day.

But if, when I find it so difficult to write, I wait for "PR" days—if I tell myself I want to make up for lost time by writing a huge amount in one day—it never happens. The writing doesn't get any easier.

Writers have to put in the work, and there is nothing wrong with the work being hard. [click to tweet]

So often, we think we should be able to write easily. It should just happen, and we blame ourselves when it doesn't. But writing is work—we tell it to everyone who will listen, but sometimes we don't believe it ourselves. Yes, every writer is different. Every process is different. Not everyone reading this will share the experience of losing writing "stamina." But one thing remains the same across the board...

To get the gains, you've got to do the reps.
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