I started a new project, felt all buzzy and real stepping out onto the diving board. Then I stopped. Two things happened. First, i showed it to someone too soon. Didn’t get the encouragement and admiration I was seeking. Second, I let a vacation, then work, then ennui get in the way. Do not do this. Do not skip a single day of writing. If you want to write something, write every single fucking day. I know this, I preach this, I believe this. As a fitness trainer on YouTube recently said, “I love intensity, I worship consistency.” So with this post, I am committing to a page a day.
Anyone want to come with?
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Betsy Lerner 
If we can count calories we can count words. Thanks for this
I’ll come along! My writing was going great and then a battle with Scrivner, a word count over my head, and 2 weeks of COVID knocked me on my ass. I stopped writing for so long I was sure I was a fake, an idiot, a lost cause. But, now I think, better to bring down the word count and write every day until I get my stamina up. I love intensity but it has to be sustainable and fun. I need high interest material and a sticker at the end of the day. I’m a wuss, I know. So I’ll come with, but I’ll probably be at the end of the line!
A page a day? Sure, why not. I already have 1,178… so mine will be in the other direction. Slash all those perfect pages one at a time. No ‘chop a chapter’ or ‘summarize dialogue’ but get to the blood of each scene.
Not showing up is what kills a lot of my writing energy. I’m excited to start a new project and will follow through—until! Until I stop for more than a day. Then I lose interest or forget where I’m going or tell myself all the reasons why I should just stop. Momentum and consistency are imperative to my writing projects.
You’re spot on about sharing our work too soon.
I’m on board. The thing is, I’m committed already and write daily. It’s my goal of getting to The End that keeps slipping. A year ago, I said, I’m going to be done by X. Missed it. And since then, I’ve missed every self-imposed deadline. This time it’s April 30th. It’s possible this time – I think. Part of the problem is LIFE getting in the way.
“Anyone want to come with?”
Maybe not on your precise terms, but I do agree with consistency in one’s writing habits. Also, it seems writers (and other “creatives”) may need to work on their writing (or other creative activities) every day, just to drive away the spirits of despair.
I, too, not long ago showed a work to someone when it may have been too soon. The reaction I received knocked me back on my heels, but after a few days I regained my balance and carried on. What else is there to do?
Showing work too soon is ALWAYS a mistake. A tempting one, however.
I got back on the horse this week and feel much better.
You know, don’t have to go the guillotine.
xo.
Sometimes, showing work too soon is the only way I can learn that there is something wrong with it and what that fault may be. It often smarts, but if that’s what it takes to make me smarter, then so be it.
Stendhal famously advocated “Twenty lines a day, genius or not.”
I was at the reading-the-manuscript-aloud stage, getting ready to submit and working on a second novel when the contractor upstairs flooded my apartment when he nicked a pipe upstairs without turning off the building water. That was March 7th. Insurance, repairs, responding to my neighbor’s nasty texts. I am drifting at an age when there is no time to drift. I’m in.
I learned about 5 years ago that writing every day is KEY… If you want this to be your job, and I do, then treat it like a job! Almost 4 years ago, I was on fire. I had finished my first genre novel and was at the final editing stage getting ready for pitching…I had just published my first erotic romance novel (under a pseudonym) and had 3 more in the nearly finished stages. It was finally happening! Then an unspeakable tragedy struck my family, and until a few months ago I never wrote another word.
In the last year or so I started being pushed to write it…the tragedy… and I started hearing “memoir, memoir” from the peanut gallery, until I finally started writing it. I need to write every day. This is something I KNOW… but writing a memoir is different and this memoir is so painful that I have just been picking at it here and there.
My reluctance to write has been a grief response, now my writing of the memoir is both heart-ripping and cathartic. I’m so thankful you wrote this. It has pushed me to remember why I want (need) to write in the first place. I am going to join you in this endeavor to write daily, even if it’s 10 words!
Thank you for writing. I’m so sorry for your family tragedy. My family also suffered a cataclysmic loss five years ago, and it does impact writing. I’m glad you’re back. 10 words! I’ll take them!
I’m in!
One of my favorite little books: “Winners and Losers” by Sydney J. Harris (1968) has a drawing and a quote for each snippet of advice, such as: A WINNER takes a big problem and separates it into smaller parts so that it can be more easily manipulated; A LOSER takes a lot of little problems and rolls them together until they are unsolvable.
The book’s out of print but it is well worth chasing down – absolutely love it. Anyway, that’s what we tend to do when we don’t really want to write; we make the task so monumentally difficult that it scares us off.
One page a day – 500 words single spaced or 250 double spaced is not so intimidating. I’m in.
As for getting someone read it early or late – you’re very lucky, because my problem is never.
Hi. I write for at least 2 hours every day and took off on the weekend. Now I’m reconsidering weekends, early or late, depending on what’s going on. I think even 1 hour will do it. I find the circle goes around abd around back onto itself.
Thanks for the impetus to go on.
I’m late to the party. I want to commit, but I will appologize in advance in case I leave you at the altar. Love is funny like that…