Yesterday I wrote about 900 words on a new story. I plan to glue my bottom to my chair and pound out the rest of a very rough draft in the day or so. The story idea itself has been kicking around in my head for about six months now, but I’d never found the time to sit down and work on it until now.
You may well ask what set a fire under me after all this time. Maybe it was this, from John Dufresne‘s The Lie That Tells a Truth:
Understand that if you didn’t write today it was because you didn’t want to. You didn’t have the perseverance or courage to sit there. You lacked the will and passion. Maybe you don’t enjoy it enough — we always find time to do the things we love. your choice not to write — and it is a choice — had nothing to do with what has been called writer’s block.
Ow. I wouldn’t say that I always find time to do the things I love – Usually I spend the time that I could have been writing in doing the dishes, running the sweeper, doing laundry, sorting socks, etc. — but yesterday was certainly a day in which if I didn’t write, it was because i didn’t want to. I had the house to myself, it was totally quiet, the phone didn’t ring, no one came to the door, and there was no housework to do that couldn’t be put off another day. So — I wrote! Yay, me.
Filed under: 2007 resolutions, books, writing
When I’m writing, I love it, but when I’m not, you about have to beat me with a stick to get me to do it. Why is that?
“Understand that if you didn’t write today it was because you didn’t want to.”
Yeah. Hmm. I don’t know how I feel about that. I think about 45 maybe 50 percent of the time that might be true. But if I’m not writing because I’m trying to survive a really bad episode of depression, or because I’m stressing out about whether or not I’m going to be able to pay bills this month- is that not writing because I didn’t want to?
I own a copy of his book. I haven’t read it yet. Because I wanted to do the exercises as I went along. Problem is- that’s a really awkward way to read a book.
Good point. He’d probably say there is some point during any day when you (or I) could have written for even 15 minutes. But surely he would make an exception for illness or stress.
I have the book from the library and won’t be able to keep it long enough to do the exercises. Plus, like you say, it’s very awkward to read the book that way. It would take me a year.
He would probably be right. In any event neither of the two circumstances really apply to me (but I thought they would make challenging examples) so I really don’t have a good excuse.
My slow progress is in part due to a deficit of passion, and some of the points mentioned in your other post- a good first draft is a poor draft (desires for perfection out of the gate).