A few years ago I finally figgered out a really obvious thing: that writing’s only one part inspiration/ability. Duh, I know. But there I was, waiting for the spirit of F. Scott to sieze control of my spine, to toss me into my deskchair and start my finger bones pounding out Gatsby II: The Reckoning. And it weren’t happening.
Through fits and also through starts, I figured out a few get-yourself-to-write techniques that seem to help. For a while now, I’ve meant to blog about these, to keep track of them, to share them, and to see if anyone out there wants to jump in with a technique or three of their own. One of my habits changed recently, so I thought that might make for a good opportunity to kick this off. I’m talking of course, about notebooks.
I subscribe to the big-notebook, little-notebook school o’ thought, wherein a little notebook is kept in pocket to jot down random ideas, dialog, observation, and shtick that arrive at unexpected moments (this came from Anne Lamotte, author of my beloved Bird by Bird) who talks about always having a few index cards shoved in your back pocket.) The big notebook is for what Julia Cameron (author of The Artist’s Way) calls “morning pages” — three pages a day, written every day, to uncork whatever ferment you’ve got in ya.
For the last six months or so, I’ve dropped from doing morning pages most days to writing three pages once or twice a week. Part of the problem was that three pages was a big enough forced-writing mandate that it only fit into my two chunks of scheduled writing time on the weekend. Also, it had pretty much devolved into pure journal. Which is not entirely a bad thing. I like having a running record of life as it’s lived. But it wasn’t really what I was looking for.
So I made two minor changes about a week ago that seem to be helping: (1) I cut down my per-page obligation to just one little page a day. A small enough bite that I can work it into my commute, or my the-kids-are-being-read-stories-by-my-better-half time. (2) Journalling is still part of the process, but each day I make sure I also write at least one paragraph of fiction. And I try to keep it a little random. No more of that “there’s a guy, and he’s sitting in a coffee shop stuff” I tend to write when, as a guy, I find myself sitting in a coffee shop.
So far, it’s an improvement. I wrote all but one day over the last week. And with the no-pressure-groove that comes with the one-page minimum, I find I’m shpieling a bit and ending up with a few extra pages most days. All told, I have something like 16 pages from the last week instead of the usual 3-6. Oh yeah, it helped that I also went to a smaller size notebook….
So OK, enough about me. What about youse? Any writing techniques you care to share today, notebookly or otherwise?
"…something like the supervisor of an entire team of political agents…"
For me the main thing is to ALWAYS WRITE IT DOWN. I hate to SHOUT but if you’re like me for some reason YOU HAVE A VERY HARD TIME learning this lesson.
Ignore that little voice that says “That’s so great, you’ll definitely remember that.” YOU WON’T. WRITE IT DOWN. ALL THE NOTEBOOKS IN THE WORLD ARE USELESS IF YOU DON’T WRITE IN THEM.
OK, I’m done now.
Not so, So. All the notebooks in the world could be used as coasters. One cow-orker used a notebook to prop open her window (it was stolen and read by a rowdy neighbor).
My writing tip is “try for weird”. Not that you, Cecil, ever a problem with that; but I find that I have to shoot past the mark, because in rewrites my stuff gets more and more ordinary–I polish the edge completely off.
It works as a get-myself-to-write tip, too, because it’s much easier to start in on a blank sheet if I have *some* kind of concept or direction beyond just “write!”.
Another: I pick a word and meditate on it for five or ten minutes; then do something non-writing for a while, such as laundry; then sit down to the blank pages while concentrating on the word. The first few grafs are about the word, but then I almost always slide past that into something unexpected.
Welp. A huge fan of Ms. Cameron, I’ve been doing Morning Pages off and on (on, now, with my own crafty twist) for like… 5 years. That’s a lotta journalling, you might say. Yes. ‘Tis “a lotta journalling” as you might have said.
However, my twist…
First of all, I call them Power Pages. Secondly, I started writing only things that will make me laugh or make me happy. Because, truth be told, I sunk in to a deeeeeeeep dark depression doing all that complaining. sometimes i write fiction, sometimes fact. sometimes “it would be cool if my life were like ____. let’s pretend it is.” and sometimes “i want to _____. and here’s how that will go.”
so far, so good. it’s been like 6 days.
i write every morning (except the mornings i don’t). there are no rules or restrictions or subject matters. the morning stuff is all froth, flotsam, little bits of dreams. having skimmed that off the top, it’s time to sit down to write the purposeful stuff. more often than not, i don’t, but the balance will tip in time.
for more on this, see bitch phd who asked a similar question and got many useful answers.
http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2006/01/embrace-irony.html
I really like this writing “Shmategory!” I hope you will continue these type of postings. I did the medium notebook/medium notebook thing for a while, using one for journal entries and one for “creative” writing. Then I did a big and a small, then some other stuff. Finally, here’s what works for me (I think): The “laptop journal.” The journal goes on the laptop, each entry added at the top of the screen (backwards). Everything–journally stuff, poems, frags of fiction, memoir. Then I can always copy and paste stuff and move to different files to complete. I have a couple notebooks but eventually it all gets entered it. Journal-wise I think it’s best to write at night because if you write in the morning, you’ve already forgotten the stuff that happened to you the day before (or it has grown stale). The page a day thing is great. I try for that too. The other problem with the LJ is that you can get sidetracked surfing the web.