JK Rowling started writing at 6. James Patterson is 18. I am sixteen and I started writing when I was 13. If I want to improve my writing and get published at 18, how much should I write a day?

*shrug* I didn’t start writing until I was 22. But honestly, that doesn’t matter. You’re looking at it the wrong way.

Some things you legitimately have to start young. There has to my knowledge never been a chess grandmaster who first started playing as an adult. It seems like chess is something you need to start young, when your brain is still plump and highly plastic.

Writing? Nah.

Don’t get me wrong, writing takes practice. But I don’t think it matters a whole lot when you start, only that you start.

A good way to think about it is you need to write about a million bad words before you start writing good words. Effective word usements require regular trips into the word-mines, chipping prose from the living rock. The sooner you start and the more you write, the more quickly you can clear out the bad words and let the good flow free.

But honestly, you don’t need to force yourself. If you’re a writer by inclination, you can’t not write.

I write every day. I don’t mean every weekday or every day except holidays or every day except when I’m sick, I mean every day. As of today, September 5, 2024, I have written (by which I mean “worked on a book intended for publication,” writing on Quora or my blog doesn’t count) I have missed 19 days in the past 2,163 days.

And the thing is, I don’t force myself to write. It’s not a chore. I write because I have to. I would still do it even if nobody read what I wrote.

Almost every published author I know says something similar. Writers write. If you’re a writer, you won’t need to force yourself to write, you write because that’s where your heart lives.

Good luck!