Developing
a writing habit
To state the obvious:
Writers are people who write. It is easy enough to become a writer but
much harder to stay a writer.
As Walter Mosely
said, "If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day.
The consistency, the monotony, the certainty, all vagaries and passions
are covered by this daily occurrence. You don't go to a well once but
daily. You don't skip a child's breakfast or forget to wake up in the
morning. Sleep comes to you each day, and so does the muse..'I know
I have a novel in me,' I often hear people say, 'But how can I get it
out?' The answer, always, is every day."
All writers must
recognise that writing has its own rewards. It engages us creatively
and spiritually and connects us with something bigger than ourselves.
Buzz McLaughlin
writes, "One way or another all successful playwrights have found
a way to sit themselves down and turn out pages day after day, week
after week, and year after year…You've got to produce actual pages.
Lots of them. One at a time. Steadily, stubbornly…Page after page
after page. Day after day after day. There's no other way."
"This steady
focus on your writing and what you want to communicate is the key to
continued long term sanity in the business. And it's the only way to
establish your career over time. One of the problems today is that everyone
wants instant success."
Persistence and
perseverance outstrips all other virtues.
Calvin Coolidge
said, "Nothing in the world will take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent:
genius will not: unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone
will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination
alone are omnipotent."
Steal
back an hour a day
At the Maui Writers'
Conference, Roland worked with Steve Barnes, in his speculative fiction
workshop. Steve has been publishing his fiction for twenty years. One
of his many catch phrases was, "Everything you want in life is
on the other side of fear and discipline."
According to Steve,
the first thing you have to do if you're serious about writing is to
find the time to sit down and write on a regular basis.
We've found in our
classes, that the biggest challenge for most writers is not so much
finding the story they want to write, or being able to write in such
a way that other people will want to read your work.
The biggest challenge
most people face is having the discipline and commitment to write regularly.
The six words that guarantee failure are, "I do not have the time."
If you want to write,
you need to steal time back from your life. You need to find an hour
a day, five days a week and devote it to your creativity. If you can't
do that, you will struggle to realise your dreams as a writer. The magic
of writing happens on the page.
So look at your
life and decide how you want to live it.
If you want to write,
you have to find a place where you can steal that hour back for yourself.
You can get an awful lot of writing done in an hour.
If you can do that
five days a week for ten months, at the end of ten months you'll have
a very good first draft of your novel or screenplay.
The question is
not do I have the talent, but, am I prepared to commit to my creativity
and do what it takes to realise my potential as a writer?
According to Steve,
it is important to commit to the pathway of the writer, and not focus
on any particular product. There are no guarantees that your first book
or film script is going to be the one.
All the New York
Times best selling authors at the Maui Writers' Conference had one thing
in common. They committed to the pathway of becoming a writer. Nearly
all of them had overcome countless obstacles and rejections.
As Steve Barnes
said, "Most people stop before they get there. But if you're true
to your path, the results will take care of themselves.
Four or five years
will pass, one way or another, and if you've done the writing every
day, you will have evolved as a writer and the results will show in
your life. "
"There's nothing
wrong with having lofty goals, where most people go wrong is that they
have unrealistic timelines.
The most successful
people are those that fail the most. The least successful people are
those who fail the least. Stay on the path. Love your process not the
product."
"I don't believe
in talent. Only hard work. You just have to do the work to find the
river of creativity that runs in your heart. Where your attention goes,
energy flows and the results grow. You have to find a way to make it
work.
Find a place for
the creative child in you to play and dance in the garden. The only
mistake you can make as a writer is not to put aside the time. Fear
is what stops us and FEAR is False Evidence Appearing Real. "
There is nothing
sadder than a heart that fears its dreams. If you aren't risking, you
aren't writing.
If you want to be
a writer, make the commitment to your creativity.
Elmore
Leonard, author of Get Shorty
At the age of 74,
Elmore Leonard had written 25 books, 23 of which have been optioned
for films. He also had 84 rejections.
This is an extract
from a story written about him. "Some times he sits there at the
desk looking out at the pool and the lawn and he can't help himself
- he thinks how did it happen? The two pages. Without the two pages
all those years ago, who knows? 'If I hadn't gotten up those mornings,
I think I might have retired now from advertising and just kind of be
hanging around."
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