Writing Through It All

I am working on a book project right now that is really close to me, and something I have been working on and off on for years, even decades. Perhaps because its so important to me, I have been having a miserable time of it lately. I have been working on it so long, I just want it to be done. I have other projects and plans in the pipeline, things I have moved to make room for this. I also feel I have a lot of credibility riding on this. All ingredients for fast flowing writing - not.

I'm working on my nth draft of the book, and although it does keep getting better, each time I begin to feel more discouraged. Things were going swimmingly a few days ago, but suddenly every minute I spend on this feels like a few hours. I am typing up some notes I wrote by hand into Scrivener,

and I am hating it - mainly because the book feels like crap to me. Its almost like I'm wading through a thick river of mud, with weighted boots, and each step is getting harder and harder. I'm feeling so guilty because I know there are so many other things I need to, I really need to make faster progress, etc.

Last night, I started to write down some notes for another project I have been toying with, thinking the distraction would do me good, maybe make it easier to get back to this book. I went to bed feeling pleased with the progress I made, as I fleshed out the structure for that book. I had told myself that I'm not writing it now, but if I don’t write it now, it probably won't ever get written. And if I'm not going to ever write it, what's the harm in just doing it anyway, good or bad? That let me go for it, and I felt like the words were flowing.

Back to my main project today, and it's still not coming together, not flowing. Today the pump feels stuck, like the pipe is clogged and the words are falling out in a clump, thick, sluggish.

I guess I have to trust in my writing. Do what Sage Cohen said in one of her books - let someone else decide whether its any good. Let me just do the work. If this is truly the best I can do, than procrastinating is pointless. Waiting to be inspired is pointless. There is only one thing to do - write through it.  Some days are good, and the words flow like music, and other days, you wonder why you chose this vocation (even though it really feels like it chose you).

This is what Steven Pressfield means by going pro. You put the words down even when everything is falling apart in your personal life, and you are lying in bed with cramps and a hot water bottle, and when you are convinced that what you’re writing is the worst drivel ever to be produced. You write through all that, and then you deserve to call yourself a writer.

So for today, I am a writer, although I really don’t know how I will feel tomorrow. Or five minutes from now. But for now, I am writing. What about you?

Why Writing Is Hard

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at the typewriter and bleed”. Quotes like this (this one is attributed to Ernest Hemingway) make us thinking that writing is incredibly hard. It is daunting enough to put your thoughts on the page without having the baggage of such a mythology. One of my favourite authors, Julia Cameron, suggests that such a mythology is misleading nonsense, and it is dangerous because it creates blocks within us, that make us believe that if the work isn’t hard somehow we aren’t doing it right. I agree with her premise, mainly because her approach has helped me write, even though I did still struggle.

Why is it so hard? Its just typing a few words on a page, isn’t it? I always thought that the reason it was hard to write, and the reason for those “bleed on the page” type of quotes, was that writers feel the pressure to choose the right word, the right phrase to describe something. Much like the designer choosing just the right fabric, and seeing his creation come together, for writers simple things like structure, at what point to start the story and how much to reveal at what stage, can loom large and create blocks in our process. I already found so many aspects of writing hard, I could sympathise with this view – it was hard to figure out just the right way to express something, it was hard to keep the grammar Nazi in the form of your fourth grade English teacher from baying in your ear that your writing was full of clichés and your punctuation isn’t good enough to pass muster (well, that’s the polite version of what she is actually saying).

Reading Natalie Goldbergs’ Thunder and Lightning, it occurred to me that the reason why writing was so hard was less to do with the elements of writing itself, but what it demanded from the writer. For writing to be good, we need to be honest, with ourselves and with the reader. We don’t need to spill all of our secrets on the page, but the feelings and emotions must be authentic. Otherwise, a reader can smell inauthenticity a proverbial mile away.

Writing also demands that we go deep within ourselves, and get to know intimately our own values and beliefs and then question them, up end them. This is not only required of memoirists, but of all of us. This inner journey is what makes writing hard, because at once we are required to be open, reveal ourselves and then question and take apart what we think now and thought before and how it is different, and how all of this has affected us.

We love our favourite authors and believe that we know them intimately – at a certain level we do know them. Whether they write fiction or non-fiction, good writers put enough of themselves in their work that their fans can feel the core of their being, can get a sense of who they really are. I may not know the favourite colours or food or taste in movies of my favourite authors, but at some level I can sense how they would think about an issue, or whether I would like them if I were to sit beside them on an airplane.

For us to really connect with our audience, and leave them with anything lasting, we first must intimately connect with ourselves, our own mind, and then have the courage to lay that basic truth bare on the page. And this is why writing is hard.

Where Does The Time Go? Keep Track of Your Progress

At the start of the week we make these grandiose plans, maybe even write down meticulous lists of all that will get done. And we put in our time, rushing around doing things, until its evening, and then you ask yourself - where did the whole day (or week) go?

I have been doing this enough lately, that I have decided to go back to a habit I picked up last year and followed for a few months. Then suddenly I stopped doing it, perhaps thinking it wasn't really that helpful, and that it took up too much time. I have decided to mention it here though, because I think its easy for the days to go by without feeling that all-important sense of accomplishment.

What is that habit? Writing down a simple list of everything I did that day - in bullet points without much elaboration. I use Evernote, but any note-taking app or even a day-planner or notebook would do. Anything that you can commit to using everyday. I found using Evernote convenient, because I already have it open on my computer every day.

I create a new note each week - and at the end of each day, I just jot down a few (anywhere from 4-8) bullet points of significant things I did that day - mostly work-related, like which sections of a book I wrote, or what research I did, but it also sometimes included movies I watched, or someone I met up with. Sometimes I used it to log what I had for lunch or dinner. The whole process took me less than two minutes, sometimes less than a minute.

Benefits - I could go over and see patterns - was I getting a lot done, or only thinking I was getting things done? Was I wasting time in busy work and not making progress on projects truly important to me? I could even sometimes see a list of things I had gotten done and feel proud - that even though I felt I was stuck, I wasn't.

Many times I did something that wasn't on my to do list for that day - maybe I was suddenly feeling inspired to work on another project. Usually these were still items that were important, but I had maybe scheduled them for later in the week. Getting them done was good, but without seeing in black-and-white that I did get something accomplished, I might look at the undone items on my to-do list and feel disheartened.

What if this is too much work, or too much like keeping time logs? Well, it can be easily done at the end of your workday, while you're wrapping up. You don't need to put things down in any specific format or order - just as you remember them, and really it needn't take longer than 30 seconds. Some days when I was feeling unmotivated or restless, I would update the list as I went, adding tasks just to show myself that I was making progress on a project that felt like the opposite. That can be a side bonus, but not necessary. You can even jot down what you did yesterday as you're planning in the morning - if that's the way you work and it feels right.

At the beginning of the year, we are motivated to make inroads on major life goals, but within a few weeks, the best laid plans go awry, and life gets in the way. Keeping a list of what you're doing, and whether that fits in with what you would like to be doing might make it easier to keep on the right track. Remember, life isn't a dress rehearsal. Let's make the most of it!

Let me know what you think, whether you have ever tried anything similar and if it's helped.