Day One: Getting ready to Write

Hello all and welcome to day one. I sent out the first writing exercise, so it should be waiting in your email In Box. If for any reason you didn’t get it yet, please send me an email and let me know. All daily writing assignments will be sent out by email, not posted here on the blog.

As we all get started here on day one, I wanted to post a few thoughts on some things to think about as you jump into your daily writing. There is an old maxim by writer Kingsley Amis “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of one’s trousers to the seat of one’s chair.” I always laugh out loud when I read this, because i guess writing really does boil down to that. In the end, it is always about simply sitting down and turning towards the work.

As you each launch into this 50-day investigation, take a moment to consider what patterns and preferences you already have as a writer. Start with location, where do you prefer to write? Sitting at your desk? In a comfortable chair? There is no "right" location, choose anywhere you are comfortable and not likely to fall prey to distractions.

Consider the tools you prefer to use, do you write a first draft most easily when working with pen and paper? Do you prefer to write in your journal, or do you work best when you are typing directly onto the computer? What time of day works best for you? Are you a morning writer or someone who writes best late at night when the day is almost over? Even if you don’t usually write everyday, you already know a great deal about yourself as a writer. The trick is finding a way to USE what you know about yourself, without being limited to it.

For example, many of us would love to have the whole week free to do nothing but write, no going to work or tending to family, no obligations or chores, no emails to return or phones to answer. But this kind of time and space is usually quite rare. So we have to figure out how to work in the times and places we already have available to us.
If you know that you work best in the morning, try to give yourself 30 minutes before work to start a bit of writing. If you work well in the middle of the day, take yourself to lunch and sit with your notebook and see if you can get some text. If you work well at night, keep the notebook by your bed and write a few lines before you go to sleep. If you are crazy-busy all day long, print out each assignment sheet every day and put it in your pocket. Whenever you get a spare minute, pull the sheet out, flip it over, and legibly jot down one or two things.

The key here is to lower your expectations until the work becomes EASY to do. If you would love to get 3 pages, start by just trying to get the first 3 sentences. A strong beginning is all you need. Give yourself permission to lay down your utopia of being the Perfect Writer and just focus on getting those first 3 sentences. Remember that the elaborate trance and idea of the Writer You Want TO BE can sometimes keep you from living as The Writer You Already Are. As the writer Marge Piercy said “The real writer is one who really writes. Work is it’s own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.” There is nothing wrong with being loved, but I think I understand what she means. Sometimes we will get a magnificent, whole first draft, but other times the work will simply emerge in messy, fragmented fits and starts. Either way you will be WORKING as a writer, and that is the real goal. Building a sustainable rhythm as a writer is always more valuable than any individual text we make. So for these 50 days, set up a realistic plan for yourself, taking into account both what is Preferred AND what is Possible. Keep the moves very small and manageable, and try to have fun!