Content Interrupted by Content, aka Book Writing Sucks Time…

 

Drawing, Richie Billing

It’s not that I planned it this way, you know. But two things occurred.

One – A simple photo in a WWII documentary I’ve seen many times. But this time, disembodied male voices called out to me. “Get us out of here.”

Result: I was dumb enough to try. It took me 7 years to complete the literary quest.

Two – So-called experts told me to write a simple pulp fiction series, and I did so, I’d rake in the online dough.

Result: Turns out I don’t know how to write a simple story, or series of simple stories for that matter, that I could write fast enough to rake in said online dough. It took me 4 years to simply complete one not-so-simple story.

Moral of a Multi-Years Tale: Don’t listen to disembodied voices wherever they’re trapped, and never listen to online experts if you want to maintain any kind of online content writing schedule.

I should have known better.

But knowing better is advice I could have given myself since I was a toddler.

Your Writing Spot...

 

Your Writing Spot...

Do you have one? One that is specifically carved out for your writing? 

You should. 

And I don't care if it's a TV table and chair beside the basement furnace if your world is packed to the rafters with a thing we humans call life. 

 

Carve out a tiny writer-you lair where your mind and body can be trained to know when it's time to get to work on your WIP - work in progress.

 

And contrary to the pretty pics you've been drooling over in writers magazines and on Instagram, the more perfect and romantic-looking the spot, the lower your writing production level may plummet. You make your hovel too wonderful, and you'll do more day-dreaming than hitting the keys. Fact.

 

Your writing space should have the bare minimum of essentials:

- a desk or a place to lay your laptop

- a chair that will allow you to be comfortable for at least an hour

- table space for a drink and your writing essentials

- a place to fit your book outline/research papers

- (optional) a quiet window view if you need to stare into space for your coffee breaks. Not everyone does.

 * and family knowledge that when you enter this space, unless they are literally on fire, you're not to be disturbed. *It's as much about training yourself to write as it is training your family to know when you write.

 

Writing a long work is about training, and practice stemming from that training, and if you haven't carved out a place in your world to emotionally and physically cue you into knowing when it's time to write, your mind won't get into gear.

 

HOMEWORK: decide on your writing lair locale, fill it with ONLY the essentials, and return to every time your writing session begins. 

 

Your psyche needs to be trained to know when the work should begin.

Follow me. I'll get you there.

Scene Segment Your Writing Time...

 

How should you segment your writing session time? 

 

This is a well debated topic. But with all the varied advice out there, some "experts" force a rational process over a creative one, and that can often hamper the story quality.

 

If you segment by word count or chapter, you are thinking rationally. You will produce prose forced under a numerical quantity and not creative quality.

 

Although you may not be conscious of it, if you say to yourself, I have to write X number of words or X number of chapters, you will draft those segments with glue words - fillers, adjective, adverbs, info dumps, meaningless dialogue, and the like - that will only have to be altered or outright removed in the edit phase. You will literally be wasting your time.

 

Consider writing by scene, in line with the scene cards I mentioned in an earlier post. Apply one scene's details/factoids to one card, and in each writing session, work on the completion of that scene, completely disregarding its length or shape or word count.

If one scene is very small, write out two scenes per session. 

If one scene is huge, segment it into its parts. 

 

As an artist, never lose sight of the visuals/story essence in your tale, and be devoted to their quality presentation, and not some arbitrary numerical delineation.

You do that, and what you produce will be a quality draft that will hold less gaffes to be dealt with in the edit. And your writing session efforts will be satisfying, for you will know you remained devoted to the story's world instead of some meaningless marker.

 

In your next session, follow me, and give this a try. You'll be glad you did!

A Writing Schedule...

 

A writing schedule...

 

It's a mystery to me that people treat writing and playing the piano differently. 

 

Both require practice.

Both cannot be accomplished simply by owning a piano or a pen. 

 

You will not be skilled at writing by having some pie-in-the-sky romantic notion that to simply plunk down fingers on a computer keyboard will make you the next Hemingway. Hemingway wasn't Hemingway when he started. He became himself after years of practice, under deadline, and forcing from his brain the production of completed works whether he felt like it or not. 

 

For the piano, it's playing the horrid scales. OMG, I just type the word, scales, and I break out into a stress rash!

For writing, it's the work of COMPLETING a story — the start, the mushy middle, and the end. 

 

Most new writers never complete any works. They adore the new story honeymoon phase, but as soon as their idea well runs dry, or they write themselves into a plot corner, the work is dropped, to collect figurative dust in some far-off computer file or desk drawer.

 

The ONLY way a new writer becomes an experienced writer who completes works is to start writing, regularly, and with the intention of completing every work they begin.

 

In my in-person process group, I had the members complete a ONE-PAGE ONLY flash story, due every meeting, so they had to work on the Start, Middle, and Finish of a singular tale. 

It lowered their fears of the Unknown in completing a work. 

It forced them to produce by a deadline. 

And like piano scales, it got their mind trained to story-telling completion.

 

** Have YOU scheduled yourself to do the equivalent of piano scales as a writer???**

 

HOMEWORK: This week, craft a writing schedule for yourself. Once complete, DELETE a THIRD of that schedule. I know you. Your eyes and bigger than your stomach right now.

 

If you have no idea what your best times are to write, 

Your HOMEWORK is: keeping a diary for the next 2 weeks to ascertain when you have free time (no job hours), when you are healthy, alert, not sleeping, and domestic responsibilities are completed. In that diary, also diarize when you SCREW AROUND - the minutes and hours you fritter away playing games or watching TV or just staring out a window. Now, take ONE THIRD of that goof-off time and reschedule it to writing. There is no gain without pain, peeps. Losing 1/3 of your goof-off time won't kill you, and it just might make you a successful writer!

 

Comment below any questions you have, but take this seriously. 

 

You want to finish a book, right? Well, follow me. 

I'll get you there if you do the steps I outline. Now get at'er! 

The 5 Minute Writing Mindset Game...

 

Photo Adelaide Club

Not writing at all? Try this exercise:

 

When it's your time to write, sit down in front of your pad of paper or keyboard, start a timer for 5 minutes, and just sit there, doing nothing. You can drink a coffee if you wish, but do nothing else.

 

Once the 5 minutes are up, get up, and go about the rest of your day.

 

Tomorrow, at the same time, do the same thing, BUT ADD ONE MORE MINUTE to those 5, and now sit there for 6 minutes.

 

Keep doing this every day you don't write, adding a minute more, until you DO write. Even just ONE WORD. That word you plunk down could simply be the word, "the."

 

Every day after that first word day, write TWO WORDS. If you don't, you must start the 5-minute wait game all over again.

 

You think this is silly? That's cool. Do it anyways. Follow me. 

 

And once you have undertaken this process, come back here to tell us your experience with it.

 

We must retrain your brain to remove all the process doubts and fears. 

To be a habitual/prolific writer does NOT happen overnight, and not without mental work.

 

Trust me. Follow me. Try it.