BITCHIN' AND WRITIN'

Working at a college means that I don’t make anywhere near as much money as my similarly educated peers. However, while they toil away at 60-70 hour work weeks waiting for their two week vacation respite, I pretty much set my own work weeks and get regular breaks. Right now we’re in the midst of a one month winter/holiday break. While most of my current co-workers are spending the time chilaxin’ in front of the television, I’m spending my time writing and working on other creative projects.

Ever since I was a young child I’ve turned to writing as a creative outlet. I regularly have multiple journals in the process of being filled with thoughts, observations, research, character studies, snippets of dialogue, and anything else that seems potentially relevant or useful. In fact right now, I have a total of 8 active journals, not including the 4 that are dedicated to my artistic endeavors. It’s a lot, but I’ve found that dedicating a specific journal to each project is a fantastic way to keep all my thoughts organized. Too many times in the early phases of a project I’ve dismissed a thought as a merely trivial diversion, only to realize later that the diversion was actually a pivotal piece of the project. I also maintain two personal journals, one for the regular minutiae of daily life that I find necessary to record and one for the more negative, potentially destructive rants that must occasionally find an outlet. I think it’s best to confine all that negativity into one spot so that it doesn’t contaminate my daily existence. Negative thoughts can too easily multiply and become a soft addiction.

Writing in a journal is a good outlet and a fine way to start writing; however, if you want to be a writer and live the writer’s life you need to do more. You need to move past the navel gazing endemic to much journal writing and actually start to put together a coherent project, whatever that may be. Making this transition and committing to not just starting but actually finishing a project is the step that trips up many potential writers. The beginning conceptual phase of a project is wonderful – it’s all potentialities and possibilities. This is the fun, honeymoon phase of writing. Every day is sunny, every night is balmy, and everything imaginable is possible. However, just like a honeymoon must end, so too must the conceptual phase turn to the real work of writing. Potentialities will only remain a possibility unless and until you take the step of making them happen.

One of the most frequent questions that I am asked is how to take a project from this initial stage to completion. How do you actually finish the book that you’ve been thinking about for years? While I don’t have a magic panacea that will instantly make a thought into a book, I have figured out a few things that have worked for me.

• Make writing a priority in your life. Make a promise to write for a certain amount of time each and hold yourself accountable.
• On those days that you don’t feel like writing, force yourself. I’ve found that those days tend to be my most productive once I force myself to sit down and start working.
• Find a writing system that works for you. I do all of my original writing on yellow legal pads with black pens. When I see these things, I automatically move into writing mode.
• If you must write on a computer, turn off the spell and grammar checks. All of those green and red squiggly lines are just another distraction.
• Write every day, even if it’s only 15 minutes. You have to do something approximately 30 times before it becomes a habit. Once you develop a writing habit, you’ll find that it’s an addiction like any other, meaning that you’ll feel the need to write daily and will feel a big hole on days that you don’t write.

I could keep going indefinitely, but I’ll leave you with these for now. If you’ve been thinking about starting a project, do it. New year’s is the time to regroup and reposition ourselves for the next year, so what better time to develop a writing practice. Drop me a line and let me know what you’re working on!