A Nobel-Winning Writer Gave Me Another Reason To Write Daily

28 Sep 2026 #writing

Gabriel García Márquez shocked me in the prologue of Strange Pilgrims.

I’m binge-reading some of his most popular books.
Love in Times of Cholera was the last one.
I’m not ready yet for One Hundred Years of Solitude.
But in the meantime, I picked up Strange Pilgrims, a collection of short stories that take place outside his hometown.

Here’s an excerpt of the prologue:

“When I started Chronicles of a Deaht Foretold, in 1979, I confirmed the fact that in the pauses between books I tended to lose the habit of writing, and it was becoming more and more difficult for me to begin again. That is why, between October 1980 and March 1984, I set myself the task of writing a weekly opinion column for newspapers in various countries, as a kind of discipline for keeping my arm in shape.”

In the Spanish edition, the last line reads more like “for keeping my arm warm.”
Maybe a reference to baseball or other sports.

Wow! A Nobel-winning writer lost his touches if he stopped writing.
He practiced with opinion columns: something shorter, less complex than a full-length novel.

Every post is a repetition, a push-up, a practice session,
Even if it’s just a few sentences that nobody seems to be reading.
Better a small session than a broken habit.

If an athlete goes to the gym, does drills, or runs every day.
If a Nobel-winning writer gets out of shape in the time between books.
Every day you don’t write “colds your arms.”
Write every single day.

Writing daily helped me recover from burnout. That’s one of the simple ideas that have changed my life.