“delaunay circles” by devi laskar
For Angie, a real writer. Happy Birthday!
Today’s title comes from a Marge Piercy poem called, “For the Young Who Want To.” It’s an old favorite of mine, and it’s a damn good reminder. I guess it’s been on my mind, because I had to read it aloud in class last week when a student told us that her recent publication changed her husband’s mind about getting her the time to write that she needs! Here’s the poem; check it out after you read the rest of this and post your comments.
Do you write? Do you write every week? Every day? Do you know when you write and for how long or how many words?
I’ve been moving cities and just finished a big project, and I have been taking a vacation from writing. But last week, I realized that the vacation had gotten WAY too long. Time to start writing again.
But without a project, it’s hard to write. In fact, one of the reasons I started writing novels in my twenties was because I’d been working on short stories, and I was tired of casting about for a new story every few days. I loved the idea of knowing what I was writing about, week after week.
I will launch into planning my next big project soon—and you’ll be hearing more on that soon, because I am going to invite a few of you to come along with me—but for now I needed to follow my own advice to all my BWW writers, which is to master that regular habit, get it down until it’s so predictable it’s boring. Let the drama, excitement and variety come in the writing itself.
The writing life is like a big vessel. You want that vessel strong and stable so all kinds of wild potions can be stirred within. It’s a habit.
Annie Dillard says, “A schedule is a net for catching days, a life raft you find yourself on, decades later, still drifting.”
Here are some resources and reminders for getting (or getting back to) your writing habit:
Write or Die is a web site that sells apps and software but which you can also use online. It basically forces you to write. (Remember how you’ve wished someone would?) You set your word count goal and your time goal and then you start. There are various modes and different levels of consequence. I quote from the site:
Consequences:
- Gentle Mode: A certain amount of time after you stop writing, a box will pop up, gently reminding you to continue writing.
- Normal Mode: If you persistently avoid writing, you will be played a most unpleasant sound. The sound will stop if and only if you continue to write.
- Kamikaze Mode: Keep Writing or Your Work Will Unwrite Itself
These consequences will persist until your preset conditions have been met (that is, your time is up or you’ve written you word count goal or both).
And last week, I just discovered another site that tracks your progress in writing 750 words/ day. It will even report to Facebook for you. I know some people out there for whom this is the perfect motivation for committing to a practice. I turn out to be one of them! In trying to set myself up there one morning last week, I noticed a few bugs, but someone recommended it to me and I stuck with it and it’s pretty cool so far.
Then there’s the Pomodoro Technique, which is about timing your work in 25-minute increments. The official web site has the great motto, “eliminate the anxiety of time.” How awesome does that sound?
And then I found this site with nine different timers, offering all kinds of options and functionality.
The bottom line is this: you need boundaries and clear, measurable goals. A timed writing session is a terrific way to do this.
You also need to track what you are doing and, ideally, report it to somebody (like me! In the comments below!).
I’ve starting my daily practice up again, and it’s actually 1000 words/ day. Every single day. I find that after about 750 words I often run out of steam, feel “done.” But with a little break, a chat, a walk, I can push on and easily do 250 more. And it doesn’t have to take more than an hour.
Who’s joining me?
Hi, Elizabeth. Thanks for this. I got a decent, good, sweet sleep last night that was almost continuous. First time in many months. That has been my priority: I’ve been walking around staggering like a drunk. For ages. I’m not joking. So my personal goals have been: getting sleep and writing. As a result, I forwent my usual morning writing and if I’m going to keep on schedule, I’ll have to get off soon. But I’m going to consider this writing about the writing as my morning writing. Usual routine is to write before everybody, even the dog, is up. Some days I’m filling up the well by doing research, but mostly it’s writing. In order to get to the frame, I’ve needed to expand, step back and freewrite and it has yielded good results, as you know. The most recent was last night — squeezing moments of writing in — I got some description of what Cassidy wants (working with both your “introduction exercise a la Devi” and Angie’s “what does your character think she needs” set of exercises from the Structure class); this description is closer to the bone and more dynamic, descriptive. I don’t know how it will change. I’m planning to work on this — and nothing else except the geneaology and the little random things that have been giving themselves to me — the rest of the week. It is hard for me to put a word count on this, but each freewrite session has yielded 1500 words and I do transcribe them into Scrivener because these are gold. 3,000 words so far, I am still in the middle of transcribing Sunday’s mining expedition. Writing About The Writing is where the appropriate little slips of paper go.
This is a lot for you to read. I’ll swap with someone, like Judith or Lea or anyone, if they’ll commit to the time. I’ll approach Judith, first. See you soon.
M