Time.

There never seems to be enough of it.

Yesterday was taken up almost entirely with the last of this semester’s school workload, feeding the brood, and getting them to and from Girl Scouts.

This is one of the great things about having a half-decent Chromebook, I can take it to Girl Scouts and write the whole time they’re learning about the value of water or earning a jewelry making patch.

But if you’ve ever tried to write anything as large as a novel, you’ll know that sometimes there’s a problem staying motivated. Perhaps there’s an issue with the plot-line you’ve arrived at or a particularly knotty scene that needs to be trudged through, or perhaps you just don’t feel like writing at all right now.

I’ve been watching YouTube videos by other writers, who have, to a person, exceeded my efforts by having been published already, and they offer a lot of great advice. But I only have one tip and it’s the same tactic I’ve adopted for breaking through writers’ block. Write garbage, write something.

Write garbage.

At the current point in The Old Man, I’m about 75% through with only four more chapters to go, and I’ve come to notice some kinks in the plot. Some threads seem completely redundant now, and some characters have more to offer the story’s theme than I’d realized when I began writing it.

What that means is, I’ve written garbage. I’m okay with that though, because I have the goal of making this novel the best that I can make it. I have no delusions of perfection, but I’m under no illusion that writing a book is a fire-and-forget proposition. It’s going to need to be worked through. Probably several times before I even think about beta readers.

Write something.

The hardest words to write are in the first sentence that I write in any session. After that, there’s a momentum that carries me through and I either reach the end of the chapter or section that I’m working on, or I reach the end of the time available. If you’re anything like me, you’ll find once you get going, it’s easy to keep up the flow of words.

Next week I’ll be finishing with school and then get busy with other projects that have gotten overlooked or set on the back burner, so I’ll still have the issue of time. But provided I continue to regularly write something, even if it is garbage, I’ll get this story finished.

“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.”

– Winston Churchill

Categories: Writing