Hey Writer,
I had another week where I got no writing done. Well, that’s not completely true. I’m getting this newsletter done in time for its release on Monday so I guess I am getting some words in. What I mean is that not much progress was made on my novella. A lot of time was spent daydreaming about how life is going to be when I am an established writer but I struggle with these beginning stages. Starting always seems to be the hardest part for me. I’m happy to be more aware of it now though and I can make sure that I don’t let one bad week turn into several.
I’ve had a few weeks off of my day job for bonding time with my daughter. We’re coming up on my final days off before I have to return to the 9-5 grind. Instead of writing, I spent the last week beating myself up for not getting more done in the month off of work. Well as it’s been said, the best time to start was yesterday, the next best time is today. I’m really gonna work hard to make this week count.
Elmore Leonard- The Dickens of Detroit
Elmore Leonard was an American novelist who found success in two separate genres. He started writing westerns, even adapting All Quiet on the Western Front as a stage play when he was only in the fifth grade. He had his first short story published in 1951 and then went on to spend the 1960’s writing westerns. Some of his stories were even adapted into movies (The Tall T, 3:10 to Yuma, Hombre, Valdez is Coming, and Joe Kidd). In 1969 he pivoted to crime novels and easily made himself a name in the genre thanks to his characters and realistic dialogue.
Leonard often wrote longhand with pen and paper and then typed the pages out on a typewriter to see how they looked. Even when he worked a day job at an ad agency he was extremely disciplined and worked to write four to five pages a day. He achieved this by waking up at 6 in the morning to get in two hours of writing before work. He insisted on writing every single day in order to not forget the rhythm in which he wrote his characters.
It is this rhythm of characters that allowed him to create such engrossing stories. He refused to outline and instead just started with a character and a situation. Leonard would let his characters react naturally in every situation and just let the story evolve as he writes it. If a minor character turned out to be interesting, he would expand their role in the story as he wrote. On the other hand, if a character felt boring, he might even kill them off. He never waited until he had the story all planned out, he just showed up every day.
Writing Exercise:
Come up with a character and put them in a situation that you’ve experienced recently. Let their reaction to the situation guide your writing.
Writer’s Block Autopsy: The Waiting Block
This is something that I think most people are guilty of. We all wait for the perfect moment to begin writing. Many of us wake up in the morning with every intention of writing. We just need to make a coffee, scroll through social media, and answer some emails. After all of these tasks, we don’t feel like writing anymore so now we have to wait until we’re feeling inspired. This eventually pushes us to put writing off until tomorrow, then next week, then next month, etc.
It’s easy to wait until inspiration arrives because all creative endeavors should be achieved in a flow state right? If that were true, we would have nothing to read or watch. Inspiration can’t be counted on to make you sit down and write. Sometimes, it is the result of the act of writing, not the cause of it. Some days the words will flow and other days you’ll only achieve a couple hundred words and that's okay. Waiting to write feels productive because you feel like you’re preparing yourself for your best writing session yet. The session where you create will always be better than the one where you only prepare to create.
Instead of asking yourself if you feel like writing today, just give yourself five minutes. Sometimes the five minutes will turn into ten which will turn into thirty. Other days you'll need to stop at five. Both types of days are beneficial to moving your story forward. Both types of days are better than waiting for the perfect moment.
The world is filled with stories, the only one missing is yours.
See you next week.
-Mike