How I Screwed Up Writing Every Day
By: Maryjo Wagner
Tags: Writing Every Day, Writing, Research, Bach

How I Screwed Up Writing Every Day

And the Story Still Isn’t Finished

Licensed from 123RF; copyright, illu

Write every day. That’s my goal. I love to write. I work in my home office every day. I rarely go out thanks to COVID. What could possibly go wrong?

Unfortunately, I also Love Research

Sure, I could look out my office window. I would probably see a squirrel romping around in the leaves. Then I could write a couple paragraphs about my love of nature, of squirrels, and how this brings me to nirvana. I could end with a sentence encouraging my readers to delight in the wonders of the autumn season.

Sadly there’s a lot of this meaningless rubbish out there. (Stop being judgmental, MaryJo. It’s a bad habit of yours.)

Ok, no squirrels in leaves. How about your favorite subject: Johann Sebastian Bach? After all the Bach chapter is one of two stories not in your yet-to-be-editing forthcoming book. At the moment, it’s only a chapter heading in Oh Look . . . There’s a Squirrel.

Bach! Go for it!

Think it through carefully. What would readers find interesting? Maybe a discussion of the almost 200 cantatas Bach wrote following the liturgical calendar? Surely you’re kidding? Even you, a Bach fan, think that sounds boring.

How about your personal experience with Bach? Oops, you’ve already written about playing Bach on the piano, a near-death experience. And you’ve written about how you almost fell off the risers singing Bach’s Mass in B Minor.

You could tell the fascinating story of the history of the famous Haussmann portrait of Bach. Not a good idea. One time when you tried to tell that story, the guy you were telling it to walked away before you’d finished the tale. And your son responded, “Mom, you know the weirdest stuff.”

You could write a review of Philip Kennicott’s Counterpoint: A Memoir of Bach and Mourning, which you just finished. Bad idea. You don’t have a single friend or family member to whom you’d recommend this book even though you loved it.

You get another cup of coffee. You look out the window to check for frolicking squirrels.

Eureka! It comes to you.

Write about Bach as a rock star. Bach lovers will appreciate it. People who aren’t Bach lovers might be intrigued by it. And oh, the possibilities: Bach in the movies, Bach arrangements by rock bands that became №1 hits, Bach at Halloween, Bach on a Moog synthesizer.

You start to write. What could be more delightful than writing this fun story about your fave composer?

You look up Apollo 100, a short-lived British rock band and their hit “Joy.” This leads you to look up a gazillion other arrangements of “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” In order to write about a couple of these arrangements, you have to listen to many. This is time consuming.

You look up Bach in the movies, find a list of 180 films. But wait . . . what about all the horror movies that use the “Toccata and Fugue in D-Minor” as background music? You check it out. This is time consuming.

Hmm, didn’t the Modern Jazz Quartet do a Bach album? You look for it. Find what Bach tunes were included. This is time consuming.

Bach in cartoons? More research.

Popularity of Bach at weddings and funerals. More research.

You’re still working on your Bach article. And at least two of the days you’ve been working on it . . . well, forget posting every day.

If you’d had the will power to stick to Bach in rock and roll or Bach and Halloween, the story would be posted.

How to Write Every Day

Write what you know that doesn’t require research. Write what’s happened to you. Write about your experiences. Write about your immediate family. (Writing about family members of the past requires addicting and time-consuming research on Ancestry.com) Write what you think about this or believe about that. Write about what you’ve learned from your mistakes.

Then once in awhile if you’ve been good and you’ve written every day, you can reward yourself with a delicious story that requires research. A story that takes a long time to write.

Discover more words of wisdom about writing every day at

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And how the author botched up Bach: