I recently came across a woman on YouTube claiming she writes 10,000 words a day. Maybe it was just clickbait, maybe she was exaggerating—or maybe she really does write that much. Who knows? It’s social media—you never really know if people do in real life what they claim online.

But let’s take that number seriously for a moment. What would actually happen if someone wrote 10,000 words every day?

• 10,000 words a day equals 3.65 million words per year
• The average novel is around 60,000 to 80,000 words
• That means at least 45 books a year

Have you ever heard of anyone publishing at that pace?

L. Ron Hubbard is often cited as one of the most prolific writers in history, with around 300 published stories and books (some sources even claim it’s up to 500). If you wrote 10,000 words a day, you’d surpass him within a single decade.

Frankly, that doesn’t sound believable.

I write 1,000 words a day. That’s about an hour of focused writing. Sometimes I write more, but I always make sure to hit at least that minimum.

This habit allows me to finish about four books per year. It also gives me time to write short stories, blog posts, tweets, and scripts for my YouTube channels.

By investing just one hour a day, I’m more productive than most writers I know. And I don’t burn myself out trying to chase 10,000 words. Writing for an hour is enjoyable, energizing—and most days, I can’t wait to return to my story.

Best of all, this schedule leaves me with plenty of time to work on my author platform, manage my tutorial YouTube channel, handle my day job, stay in shape, read, and even enjoy a movie in the evening.

For perspective: Ian Fleming’s Bond novels were typically between 55,000 and 75,000 words. At 1,000 words a day, you could finish a Bond-length novel in about three months—easily.

So why push yourself to write 10,000 words a day? It’s a recipe for burnout. You’ll probably end up hating writing. You’re not going to edit all that content anyway. And you’re definitely not going to publish 45 books a year. Even if you could, who’s going to read them all? Releasing a book every week would overwhelm even your most loyal fans.

Selling four books a year is already a challenge, as most readers have dozens of authors that they follow.

Of course, do what works for you. But writing 1,000 words a day—if you actually do it consistently—can put you on the same productivity level as someone like Stephen King. Doesn’t that already sound impressive enough?

If you want to be a writer—write. It’s that simple.

Basketball players only get good by playing basketball. You only improve at speaking a foreign language by using it. If you want to learn the guitar, well—guess what? You have to play the guitar.

The same goes for writing.

I’ll never understand the people who say they’d love to write a book, and then never sit down and write it. For some reason, writing is seen as something that requires endless thinking, planning, and dreaming—without ever actually starting.

No.

Being a writer works like everything else in life: you have to do it to be it.

The best way to improve is to write every day. Even if it’s just a little. A blog post, a tweet, a page for your book—or maybe just a single sentence. Do that every day, and you will get better.

No matter how bad you are at basketball, if you practice daily for a year, you’ll be better than when you started. The same is true for writing.

So how do you write every day?

• Write at the same time each day. This helps turn it into a routine.
• Start with just one sentence. Most days, once you get that first sentence down, you’ll want to keep going.
• Don’t judge your writing. That’s for the editing phase. In the writing phase, your only job is to get the words out of your head and onto the page.
• Mix it up. Work on your book, sure—but also write tweets, blog posts, short stories, or journal entries. Give your brain variety, especially when you’re tired of one project.
• Read a little every day. Reading a great chapter by a skilled writer will teach you something—and it’ll motivate you to create your own badass chapter.
• Put your writing out there. You can’t be a real writer without readers. Some readers will be kind, some will be critical—even harsh. But you’ll always learn something from them.
• Use self-publishing. Traditional publishing is filled with gatekeepers. They’ll reject bold ideas and challenging stories if they don’t fit the current socio-political narrative. So fuck ’em. Use social media, your website, and self-publishing to do your own thing.
• Keep learning. See everything you write—and everything you read—as a chance to grow. Even bad writing helps if you learn from it.

Now stop reading—and write something.
Then do it again tomorrow.
And the day after that.
And the day after that…

One of my favorite filmmakers is Robert Rodriguez. I remember watching Desperado as a kid—it instantly became my favorite movie, and to this day, it remains one of the greatest action films out there.

Rodriguez got his start with El Mariachi, the precursor to Desperado. The movie aired on German TV around the same time. I liked it. It was good. Only later did I learn that El Mariachi was his low-budget debut—made without a crew, without a producer, and without any help from Hollywood.

I read Rebel Without a Crew, the book in which Rodriguez details how he made El Mariachi for just $7,000—and how that film opened the doors of Hollywood for him. I couldn’t believe it was possible to create a quality movie on your own, and on such a tight budget, even back in the early ’90s.

Today, things are even more accessible. You can make a solid movie with just a smartphone and an editing app like CapCut—almost for free. All you need is a few friends, a strong idea, and the drive to make it happen.

To prove this point, Rodriguez made another $7,000 movie in 2018 called Red 11.
I watched it yesterday. It’s certainly not a Hollywood blockbuster, but it’s good—especially when you consider it was made on a shoestring budget.

Watch it here:

And here’s the big lesson: If you want to be an artist—a creative, a storyteller—use what you have and just get started. You don’t need to crowdfund your first book. You don’t need a $20 million budget to make a movie. You don’t need a record deal to make music.

With today’s technology and the reach of social media, anyone can be an artist. The gatekeepers are gone. Make your low-budget film. Self-publish your book. Upload your songs to Spotify, your short films to YouTube, and your comedy sketches to Twitter.

Just start. Learn as you go. Improve with each project. And build your audience, your skills, and your income along the way.

One of the best movies of the past few years is The Menu. Its opening scene delivers a great lesson for storytellers:

It perfectly captures the essence of show, don’t tell.

You could explain everything about the exclusive restaurant the characters are visiting via having the characters talk about it. You could have a narrator describe the incredible menu awaiting the guests in the intro. But the film doesn’t do that—it shows it to us instead.

The scene begins with Hoult’s character being visibly upset when the female protagonist lights a cigarette. He tells her that smoking will dull her sense of taste—just before they experience a highly refined meal. That single moment tells us everything about both characters: he is the passionate food connoisseur, deeply invested in the experience; she’s the indifferent plus-one, just along for the ride.

Moments later, Hoult’s character spots a famous food critic and is instantly impressed. Most people wouldn’t recognize a food critic on sight—even if he’s the most renowned critic in the industry. This tells us that Hoult’s character is not just interested in fine food—he’s obsessive about it.

In just 90 seconds, the film establishes the setting and the dynamic between the two main characters. And it does so without a single line of direct narration—it shows us everything we need to know instead.

This is excellent writing to learn from.

In 1995, a big-budget dystopian comic action movie was released, featuring one of the most iconic characters ever created: Judge Dredd. It starred Sylvester Stallone at the height of his career and boasted an impressive supporting cast including Armand Assante, Jürgen Prochnow, Diane Lane, Joan Chen, and Max von Sydow. The score was awesome. The effects were top-notch for their time. It even featured James Earl Jones as the narrator.

So, what could possibly go wrong?

Apparently, a lot. The movie bombed at the box office, costing the studio at least $60 million. Adjusted for inflation, Judge Dredd may have lost around $130 million—making it not only Stallone’s biggest flop, but also one of the most notorious box office disasters of the 1990s.

Critics and fans didn’t like it either.

When I first saw it as a kid, I actually enjoyed it. It’s a typical ’90s action flick with sci-fi elements. Since I wasn’t familiar with the comic’s lore, I had no expectations and could just enjoy the ride.

Only later did I discover the comics—and that’s when I understood why so many fans disliked Stallone’s version. A general rule in filmmaking is this: when you’re working with great source material, don’t try to “improve” it. Your job is to adapt it faithfully, staying as close to the source as possible.

But there’s another important lesson to be learned from this film. It’s delivered in the very first scene.

So what’s wrong with this opening?

It breaks the most fundamental rule of storytelling: show, don’t tell. And it breaks another major one: it repeats information unnecessarily to make sure the audience “gets it.”

The real opening begins right after James Earl Jones’ narration, where we see Judge Dredd navigating the megacity and sentencing a criminal to prison.

So why include the narration at all if the next scene shows everything we need to understand the world?

The filmmakers didn’t trust the audience to grasp the setting through storytelling alone. So they added narration to explain the world—just in case even the least attentive viewer didn’t miss the point.

That’s not just insulting to the audience—it’s boring. And boring is the ultimate sin in storytelling.

If you feel you need a narration segment to explain your world, chances are you haven’t shown your world well enough. And if your narration simply repeats what is being shown on screen, it sends the message that even you, the storyteller, don’t believe your scene is strong enough to deliver.

If you don’t believe in your own work, why should your reader or viewer?