Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Just Do It.

My advice to someone in my state of mind is to be gentle with yourself. Set a goal to write, but do not put restrictions on what the writing must be. Nor does it need to be the same every day. One day it might be journaling, one day a blog, another day it could be an ‘essay’ – and I use this term loosely. Character sketches, descriptions, and even fiction scenes are acceptable.

Set your goal only to get words on the page. Set a goal of time rather than word count, with the only requirement being to keep writing and not stop. No staring at the blank page allowed. If you don’t know what to write, write that.

“I have nothing in my head. My brain is pudding today. I don’t feel inspired and I feel rather cranky that I’m forcing myself to write. But I’m doing it because I’ve been told it will be a good thing, that it will help this foul mood, that it will unlock the frozen words in my head. I don’t know if I believe it, but for now I’ll go on faith. If it’s worked for others, it could work for me. And if it doesn’t, at least it was free.”

If you feel that you’re wasting time, writing drivel, comfort yourself with some sage advice I heard years ago: Give yourself permission to write garbage. Even garbage becomes compost with a little treatment.

“Just get it all down on paper, because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means. There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you're supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go--but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages.”
–Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird

“The only time I know that something is true is the moment I discover it in the act of writing.”
—Jean Malaquais

This last is particularly helpful if you’re writing from a place of gloom or depression. Sometimes we think we know how we feel and what our thoughts are, but very often, if I’m pushing myself to keep writing until the timer dings, eventually something I write surprises me. This doesn’t happen at first. Our filters are pretty good at keeping the weird thoughts, the unacceptable angry thoughts, or the just plain embarrassing thoughts off the paper. If you wholeheartedly accept the challenge, you will eventually uncover things buried beneath the daily clutter.

If you need more convincing, Google on ‘writing therapy’ and see how science has supported the benefits of writing.

Go on now, go set your timer and put some words on the page. You don’t have to share them, just write.

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