I just finished reading a short interview with Cory Doctorow where he talked about his discipline around writing every day – setting a word count and meeting it every single day. I’ve heard that before, and it sounds incredibly daunting to me. But he also talked about the fact that sometimes his word count goal is 200 or 250 words, if he’s busy with his other 972 projects that day. Like Doctorow, I type 70-80 words per minute. Writing 250 words in a day should be nothing, right? Of course, that would be 91,250 words over the course of a year. The thing that really boggled my mind, though, was this:
“When I hit that word target I stop. Period. I stop in the middle of a sentence, so I can start the next day without having to think of anything.”
Whoa. That’s…insane? Ridiculous? Amazing? Brilliant? I have no idea. It’s certainly nothing I’ve ever contemplated before.
Anyway. I’m not ready to commit to writing every single day, but reading Doctorow’s thoughts about doing so reminds me that I really do enjoy writing when I get in a groove of doing it *regularly*. I’m also really aware of how poorly disciplined I am about this. For instance, I was just thinking, “Hey, I’m doing great with the blog this year.” Then I noted that I’ve posted exactly twice in 12 days, and the most recent post was 6 days ago. That doesn’t really qualify as “great” in my book. To that end, then, I’m going to work on a tarot post today, and will get it posted by the end of the day Friday. Assuming, of course, that I don’t hit my word count target and stop in the middle of a –
One reply on “Writing discipline”
Jason, my goal as taught to me by my college English Professor is 20 minutes a day. It doesn’t have to be creative, but it generally turns creative. Often a novel can stem out of that writing time, and off I go. The main thing is to have fun with it. Time is not an issue for me as I don’t actually own a TV let alone have one streaming into my home. I do however enjoy playing minecraft on my computer and really have to restrict the time that I spend there.
Inspiration and motivation and creativity often come out of disciplined action. Oh my! I just had a great inspiration for my blog at the777man.wordpress.com. The Fun-de-mentals, now I have to go write if! Hehe! I subscribed to your blog and will keep up with it!
Peace and Harmony
Sallyjane