How To Write, Part 3: Practice, Practice, Practice

Writing, like... pretty much everything... requires a lot of practice and effort and work. And like with everything else, there are going to be good days and bad days, pretty much no matter how practiced you are. I mean, personally, I can usually churn out a poem or two a day, if the urge so takes me. Most days. Then there are days where I'll be lucky if I can get two coherent words together.
Still, practice helps. If you practice your trade, no matter what it is, the bad days should become less frequent... you'll even learn to push hard on even the worst of days, to manage at least a little bit. And every little trickle added to the pot helps, believe me on that. I mean, let's say you write approximately one thousand words a day. Well, that adds up to thirty thousand words over the course of a single month. It adds up, never doubt that... and more important than that, when even on bad days you add even just a sentence to  your story or poem or narrative or whatever, it helps keep that steady flow. You don't end up with a day where you said "I couldn't do anything," you end up with a day where you said "I could only manage this much," but the next day you'll be able to go back and say "I left off here" instead of "I didn't write anything yesterday."
I'm probably not making a whole world of sense right now. It's been a long day around here. Luna's all quiet for once and I feel lethargic. But here I am, tapping away anyway because... that's what I do. Because even this is practice. And it's important to remember that... every form of writing you do, you put any amount of effort into, can serve as practice. Can help you experiment with different forms of narrative flow, structure, etcetera... and it can help you find what you're comfortable with, too, especially if you take the time to go back and look over that practice. Examining the way you write off-duty, so to speak, such as in journal entries, side notes, little bits of thought and prose, you can find patterns... you can find what you consciously or subconsciously always strive to include, then recognize it, learn to evolve and develop those kinds of things.
But practice. Practice, because that's what the old writers did.
Or they listened to the voices in their heads. Which went great.
You know.
Up until they died or were put in asylums.
Practice is a little safer.

~Scrivener Blooms