Writing Motivation (part 2)
Okay. This is going to have to be a short one, because I have real writing to do. When I say “real” I actually mean I have to go and write some made up stuff about people who only exist in my head.
Fiction, my novel, is the writing I want to do. This blog is a bit of fun, something that allows me to engage with the world and with other writers. But I want to be a fiction writer and not a blogger, so I do not want to spend too much time blogging, because that is time when I could be writing fiction.
And since I began my new writing regime, the fiction is flowing. I can hardly keep up with myself. In actual fact, it’s created a problem because I am now in two different places in the story — the place I am in the handwritten draft in my notebook, and the place I am in the first draft on the PC, that uses nicer words and is somewhat lagging behind. Tough break, eh?
Anyway, since I have hit upon something that really works for me, I thought it would be wrong not to share it, so here’s a few tips.
1. Write early.
First off, I have stopped waiting until everything else is done to write. I get up in the morning, and I write (this post is the first thing I’ve done today!). The goal I set for myself is to write one A4 page, while standing at the kitchen counter, before I do anything else. In actual fact, what I have been doing is writing 2 to 3 A4 pages before doing anything else. Each day I pick up the story at the point at which I left it the previous day, and I aim to move it forward. That’s all. Oh, and I allow myself to write it badly.
What this gives me is something to work with when I sit down to write in the evening. There is a draft to be refined, those scribbles are the third thing that makes the contact between myself and the keyboard a little less intense.
2. Stand Up.
It’s important to stress that I do this WHILE STANDING. One morning, I allowed myself to try to write these pages sitting on the bed, and it did not work. When I sit, I tend to relax into whatever it is I am doing. Standing helps me keep focused. Standing at my little writing spot in the morning, I am always drawn to sit on the bar stool beside me, and every time I feel that urge to sit I hear a little voice saying “Yeah, you can sit when you’ve finished writing this page.” I swear that standing is the key to my success.
3. Read.
I’ll avoid naming names, but it’s safe to say that I have read that “shitty book” and that “amazing book” that Chuck Wendig talks about. And yes, I can do better than that shitty book, and I will!
But the same way the key to a healthy balanced diet is “everything in moderation” I think the key to being able to write is “read, in moderation.” My experience is that if I allow myself to read constantly, I get lost in other peoples words, and anything I write starts to read like a poor attempt to emulate the style of whatever authors I’ve been reading.
My experience is that to find my own voice, and make it heard, I have to stop consuming other peoples words.
4. Write badly.
I haven’t needed to stick a post-it to my screen to remind me “don’t look back!” because I am being propelled forward at such a rate that looking back hasn’t occured to me. Re-writing is what a second draft is for. Permission from myself to write badly has (finally) been granted.
5. No guitar.
Not picking up the guitar before I write has been difficult. I love the guitar. It sits in a corner of my kitchen and calls to me in a quiet moment. Usually, I switch on the kettle for my morning cup of tea, then pick it up and play while I’m waiting for it to boil. More often than not, this takes at least a half an hour, though the kettle only takes three minutes to boil. It has been hard, but I’ve come to understand that my guitar eats my time, and I need to limit how much time I spend on it — the same way my son has a limit to the amount of time he is allowed to spend on his Nintendo DS.
6. No internet.
The other bad habit that has been remarkably easy to break is the habit of multi-tasking, also known as the habit of leaving social media apps running in the background while I try to write. Writing longhand into a notebook in the morning (with the smartphone on silent) means there is no association between the act of writing and the internet. And in the evening, because I am sitting down with a purpose (to redraft what I wrote that morning) it doesn’t occur to me to open Google Chrome. I suppose I am no longer looking for a distraction from the pain and frustration of not being able to write.
7. Use your friends.
The five days out of seven has been no problem at all — yay me! And it seems I have a team of “accountability buddies” who check in daily, to see if I have stuck to my plan for the day.
At this rate, i might even have a first draft finished by the summers end. It’s been a long road, but I’m getting the feeling it will never be this hard again.