If you’re still reading, the one thing I thought might be useful is a brief discussion about getting started. Most authors who write about writing have a certain level of success already. They have a writing process that has been proven, that works for them. They reflect on the end result of their writing evolution. But all of that isn’t necessarily helpful when you’re attempting to get started. Especially if you’re also working full time in an unrelated career.
After I decided I wanted to do some writing, I faffed about for a long time doing not very much writing at all. I thought about stories. I did a bit of planning, trying to outline structures. I read some books on writing. In short, I danced around the writing process without actually putting finger to keyboard. At the time of penning this post I’m about 55,000 words into the first draft of a novel and have written a few short stories. Nothing I hasten to add that is good enough quality for publishing. And that I guess is part of my point. This post isn’t about producing good quality writing or publishable material. It is about producing anything at all! You can’t even start the journey to publication if you haven’t written a word.
So what changed? How did I go from virtually no output to at least making progress. There were a few key points that made the difference for me.
- Realising that any writing was good writing
I’ve heard others say this as well so it is not a particularly unique insight, but one major revelation for me was realising that what I wrote in the first instance didn’t have to be encumbered by little things like talent or quality. Any time I would start writing I’d get a couple of paragraphs in and I’d start to worry about whether it was any good. I’d wordsmith, rework, craft and shape trying to turn those couple of paragraphs into something “worthy”. And weeks would slip by. When you’re working full time and are balancing the other aspects of having a life, you don’t actually have much time to write. The loss of momentum created by that kind of fiddling creates huge problems with actually feeling like you are getting anything done (this is very related to the design vs build section below).
So, giving myself permission to write a piece of crap first draft was a big turning point for me. Suddenly I didn’t have to worry about using too many cliched phrases or whether my plot was too derivative. I didn’t have to worry about whether my dialog was too stilted or I was doing too much telling instead of showing. I just had to worry about writing and actually getting things down on page. And that was incredibly freeing.
- Do it your way
After a career spent typing on a keyboard I’m not a great freehand writer. I find I can’t keep up with my thought processes when I write with a pen and paper. Also while I carried around a notebook and pen with me as much as possible, I found that at times when I might have found 1/2 hour or an hour to write I often didn’t have writing materials to hand. And then when I used scraps of paper etc, I found myself not really collating them or putting them together into anything coherent. All that is a long way of saying that I wasn’t comfortable with the way I was writing and that put road blocks up for me actually producing output.
For me a big change has come with the recent significant increase in the portability of computers. I’ve always like the concept of the laptop but never found the reality lived up to the promise. When the laptop weights a few kilograms and you have to carry it plus a bulky power cord, mouse etc around, it is not realistic to assume you’ll take your computer with you most of the time.
Enter the recent “ultrabook” trend that started with the Macbook Air. I bought an Air a little over a year ago and it has made a massive difference to my writing productivity. With 7 hours worth of battery and weighing not much more than a kilogram, it is entirely feasible for me to take the Air with me to work every day. On those days when I have time to take a lunch break, I take the Air down with me to a cafe and get 1/2 hour writing in. I can’t always predict which days I’ll get to write but now I don’t have to. It has made a huge difference.
(I got a Macbook Air partly because it was the only ultra light laptop around at the time and partly because I really like the Scrivener writing program which is only available on the Mac – although I believe a Windows version is close to coming out. Most manufacturers have been playing catchup and there are a series of ultrabooks with similar weight/size characteristics coming out now if you prefer Windows)
Of course computers aren’t everyones preferred method of writing first drafts. I guess my general point is that you need to find a way of making writing time available to you more often in a form that works for you. Like the “any writing is good writing” point above, it is about creating momentum in your work.
- What a difference a week makes
Most of the podcasts that I listen to and articles/books that I’ve read by successful published authors talk about having daily word targets. I tried that for a little while, but I found it incredibly frustrating. Life doesn’t always let you sit down and write every day. It would be nice if it could. Perhaps if I was single or at least didn’t have kids it would be different, but I found that even setting a very modest daily target (say 200 words) just wouldn’t happen. And then I’d get discouraged and feel that I wasn’t living up to my goals.
I wish I could remember which podcast I was listening to (it was one of the Sydney Writer’s Centre podcasts on writers and writing), but it was one of the rare ones where the author in question was discussing juggling full time work and writing. And they said “set a weekly word count target”. A simple adjustment but it made all the difference in the world. I set a 2,000 words target per week, to be achieved by Sunday night each week. I started keeping a little log each week listing my word target and the actual word count I achieved. I reviewed the targets each month and if I was ahead of schedule I’d reset my targets to prevent coasting.
It made a huge difference. Sure, some weeks I don’t get there and I have to do some catchup work the next week. I’ve had to do some creative things to find time to work, sometimes working a lunchtime, sometimes locking myself in the study for a few hours on the weekend to make up for lost time. But generally I’ve stuck to the 2,000 word target and it has created some real momentum in my work. Having a week as my basic unit of time rather than a day has created some much needed flexibility in my schedule, and now I feel good about my progress as opposed to always feeling guilty about not measuring up.
- Design vs build
In my early career I wrote a lot of software. I’d see fellow programmers get stuck in what we’d call “analysis paralysis” where they would rehash the design of their software system over and over again trying to get it perfect. And like any plan, it wouldn’t survive 5 seconds of actually being used. No matter how much time was spent on the design, once you tried to build the software you would have to go back and revise.
In the software world I gravitated towards design methodologies which essentially had you do an 80% design in a very short period of time and get started writing code as soon as possible. This worked as long as you scheduled in time to put your head up and revisit that design during the course of your work to make sure everything was still hanging together.
I have found myself taking a similar approach to writing. I do my “80% structure” up front, but get writing as quickly as possible then rework the structure as I go. I make sure I take time on a regular basis to take a step back and revisit the overall structure. Applying this approach helped me break out of some initial “analysis paralysis” and actually get writing.
And even if your first draft has structure holes, well that is what a second draft is for.
Conclusion
Look, this was just a few of the hurdles I had to getting started writing and how I overcame them. Your issues will probably be different. I’ll add to this post as I think of more things and try to keep it up to date. Leave comments below about your own experiences – I’d love to hear about them. And don’t forget, this isn’t about getting published or writing award winning work. This is just about writing anything at all!
