WAKE UP AND WRITE
If You Show Up, You Will Produce Something
Make writing appointments for yourself and honor them
Wake Up and Write is a regular advice column from Moms Don’t Have Time to Write. Today, we have Liz Moore — best-selling author of Long Bright River, and the author of acclaimed novels Heft and The Unseen World — who shared writing advice on the podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books, hosted by Zibby Owens.
“I hate the word discipline, but it took me a long time to learn it.”
“I guess instead of discipline, I’ll just say this: Make appointments with yourself and honor them. Don’t let yourself be distracted by technology during those times. The best advice I’ve ever heard is there’s not really such a thing as writer’s block.
If you show up to a blank screen, whether it’s computer or paper, for a designated amount of time every day or however many days a week you want, you will produce something if you don’t allow yourself to go online or go on social media or text or do anything. You will produce something.
If you do that enough times, you will accumulate words.
That’s a very important first step. Just learning how to produce words on a schedule, and in an organized way. Then the next step, of course, is trying to make those words good. Just the act of producing words, accumulating words, is something that I think most writers never actually do. It’s not fun to write, but it is certainly cathartic and therapeutic for me.
That’s why I do it.”
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