The Farmer Mindset – The Only Writing Rule You’ll Ever Need

There’s this rule I keep tripping over. A stubborn rule. It knows it’s the only rule I’ll ever need. And it knows it needs to insert itself in front of my face as often as possible.

Yesterday, for example, I cracked open David V. Stewart’s The Keys to Prolific Creativity. And there it was, waiting for me on page 5. Only this time, it was called “The Farmer Mindset”. And it struck me because lately I’ve been researching what it takes to be a homesteader (Spoiler: It’s not easy). That, and I’d never heard it put this way before.

Stewart considers this mindset the sixth of his nine “keys”, and in it, he likens the act of writing every day to farming in that there are no sick days allowed. Even when feeling lazy or horribly under-the-weather, there are certain tasks that must be performed on-time every single day. Failure to do so means serious consequences for the health and well-being of the surrounding land, plants, animals, and family.

One example he gives has to do with animal husbandry:

Calling in sick to the birth of a calf could net you the loss of two cows.

That’s a great example. Every day I don’t write, I lose words that could’ve been the catalyst for something new. The birth of a scene that just wouldn’t spark before. The proper closure for the scene that preceded it.

Many of those words, scenes, and ideas won’t wait for me and will never come back, even if I’m the most dutiful note-taker in the world. I often lose the context and meaning by the time I get around to adding it to my manuscript, and I always lose the words that would’ve come with it had I bothered to follow the breadcrumb trail.

Being in the manuscript is magnitudes better than jotting down ideas in an isolated notebook. The manuscript is where the flint meets the steel, and where the fire of your words have the best chance of spreading.

If I had to re-phrase this “farmer mindset” rule into my own words, it would look more like this:

Write…even when you don’t want to.

This is the only rule writers ever need.

We don’t need other rules, such as the famous, “Rules, once mastered, are meant to be broken.” (That one’s understood with time, anyway. Follow the Farmer Mindset long enough and it will lead you to this and many other logical conclusions that are better earned than learned.)

A piano player doesn’t need a tutor. They simply need their fingers on the keys and they need to practice every day. Music will come. Techniques will follow. Discoveries will be made that no one else could have ever taught them.

I can buy barbells and look at them, and watch countless YouTube videos on how people get healthy, but I have to lift those weights if I want to see change.

Some writers say this rule in a softer way:

• “Just write.”
• “The muse is a luxury.”
• “Writers don’t write due to inaction.”
• “Writing is more perspiration than inspiration.”

Those rules are just softball versions of the Farmer Mindset. That’s what I like about it.

And this rule is inescapable. It’s the only rule. There are no other writing rules. I can hardly say I’m a farmer if I’m never down in the dirt. One can spend a quarter of their life being an “aspiring author” while ignoring this rule, only for it to come back and bite them in the ass.

Following this rule would solve all my problems, and probably solve all yours’. Maybe you write 50% of the time or maybe even 1% of the time. All I know is that professional writers are somehow willing to write even when they don’t want to. They’ve cultivated that Farmer Mindset until it became a habit. And it leads to great things.

To become a professional writer, the muse must be replaced with discipline. And discipline develops your craft.

Forget about talent. Craft can grow to be nearly indistinguishable from talent. In fact, people who cultivate their craft often surpass those with raw talent in the long run through the sheer will and stubbornness of being prolific.

I perform at my best when I’m under a hard deadline with consequences. It forces me to write even when I don’t want to. It forces me to cultivate my craft through practice, rather than research. It’s active instead of passive. It’s getting my hands in the dirt versus watching endless YouTube videos. I may throw a temper tantrum, my toes may curl, but managing a writing ritual allows me to more deftly create scenes that maintain reader interest (and meaning somehow gets weaved in more effortlessly).

I get better at writing every time I manage to rein myself in and let those sparks fly. This is day 2 of 40.