Category: muse

You remember the Procrasti from Deep Space Nine, right? They were that race from the Gamma Quadrant that was going to come through the wormhole someday…

Geek joke.

I saw a thing floating around Twitter a month or three back, one of those clickbaity “this article EXPLODES one of the biggest myths about writing…”  And that myth was that writers need to write every day. Which, granted, the vast majority of professional writers—myself included—will all tell you to do if you want to do this for a living.  But according to this little piece, that’s complete nonsense.  If I only write once a week, good for me.  If I need to wait for inspiration, that’s fine.  What’s important is that I’m writing at a rate that’s comfortable for me.

Now, in all fairness to the article, I’ve said similar things here.  If you can only write on Sundays, standing on your head while wearing that “enhancing” corset you bought at the ren faire last year, but you always write 15,000 words in a session… well,  congratulations.  It’s a damned weird system, but it works for you.  So what if you don’t write the other six days of the week.  Fifteen thousand words a week is fantastic.  I know some pros who don’t hit those numbers consistently. Hell, I usually don’t hit those numbers.

However…

If I’m only cinching myself into the corset once every two or three weeks, and only writing a hundred words when I do… there’s a chance I just may not be taking this whole writing thing that seriously.

And there’s nothing wrong with that in a larger sense.  If I just want to scribble blog posts or fan fic as the mood strikes me, that’s fine. I know a few people who write as more of a therapy thing, some who do it for fun, and one who did it as a sort of… well, she’d been single for a while.  Let’s leave it at that.

Again, no big deal if that’s how I approach it.  To fall back on an analogy I’ve used once or thrice, not everybody who cooks needs to be a chef.  Or wants to be.  I love cooking, playing around with spices, trying new things with pizzas or pasta… but I’m never going to be a chef.  I’m fine with that.  I’m just doing this to have some fun on the weekends.

But… if I wanted to be a chef, to actually get paid for cooking, I’m probably going to have to put some work into it. And that means doing it more often than when the mood strikes me.  It means sometimes I’d need to stay home and cook rather than going out with friends.

And, yeah, sometimes that work can mean other things. It can mean reading cookbooks. Or watching cooking videos on YouTube.  Maybe even eating out sometimes.

But in the end… it means I’m going to be cooking.  A lot.  There’s really no other way to do it.

Same with writing.  If I want to make money off this storytelling thing—if I want to do it for a living—I’m going to have to write. A lot.  On a fairly regular, consistent basis.

I wrote my first three novels and a good-sized novella while I was working full time as an entertainment journalist. And reading scripts on the side.  So I was often doing four or five thousand words a week to put food on the table and pay rent, then staying in the chair to do another six or seven thousand on the stuff that I wanted to be paying rent with.

Hell, I know two full-time, professional writers (about to be three) who had babies this year.  Little, squishy new-humans who pretty much need constant attention (granted, I’ve never had one myself, so that’s just conjecture on my part).  And those three are all still writing.

It’s fine to tell myself that I’m waiting for the muse.  Or that I’m reading a how-to book about crafting the perfect first sentence.  Or that playing Dawn of War III is going to be a vital part of my creative process.  We all have our own methods when it comes to writing. Like that corset.

But there is also a point that… well, I’m just not writing.

Again, depending on what I want out of this, that may be fine.  If I only post on my blog once a month… so what?  If I just write slash-fic when I’m bored, hey, it passes the time.  If this is just a hobby that I do every couple of weeks… awesome.

If I keep telling you how much I want to be a chef, though… wouldn’t it be weird if I only cooked one or two meals a week?  Or two or three times a month?

I mean, that just doesn’t make much sense, right?

Next time, I want to talk about something crazy.

Until then, go write.

Oh!  And if you’re in the Los Angeles area, this Sunday is the Writers Coffeehouse at Dark Delicacies in Burbank.  Noon to three, open to writers of all levels.  It’s completely free—no sign up or anything, just stop by and pull up a chair.

Okay… now go write.

Alas, I’m going to be touching on an old idea, and doing it with an old story.  But it’s all kind of relevant…

So… true story time.

There would be no hand-holding, no prodding.  Jerzy wasn’t a “shout at you to do crunches” kind of trainer.  I would get the instruction book, the rules, and then I’d be left on my own for a month.  This was all my responsibility.  After all, if I was going to lose this weight, the only person that could really make it happen was me.  Jerzy gave me his home phone number, his cell, and his email.  “But,” he said with a shrug, “if you really need me to tell you ‘don’t eat the chocolate cake’… you can’t be that serious about losing the weight.”

See where I’m going with this?

With the Writer’s Coffeehouse, this ranty blog, random messages on Twitter or Facebook, I’d guess every three or four weeks I get asked something along the lines of “how do you do it?”  How I manage to sit down every day and pound out a few thousand words?  How do I exercise the self control to plant myself in front of my desk and write?

The answer’s simple.  There’s no trick to sitting down and writing. None at all.

You just do it.

Y’see, Timmy, if I’m serious about this, I shouldn’t need to find some clever reason or inspiration to get myself in the chair every day.  I should want to be there.  The real problem should be getting me out of the chair.

Which brings me back to Jerzey.  I lost sixty pounds in fourteen months working with him.  And in about two weeks I’ll be starting my tenth novel.   That’s tenth published novel, to be clear.  Published by someone else.  Who gave me money for the right to publish my work.

And nobody needs to tell me to do it.

Oh, while I’m thinking of it, this Sunday is the Los Angeles Writers Coffeehouse!  Noon to three at Dark Delicacies in Burbank.  We’re going to talk about mysteries and twists and reveals.  It’ll be fantastic, it’s free, and all you have to do is show up.

Next time—and next time will be very soon, I promise—I think we need to talk about what’s at stake.

            I like to start the year by going over what this pile of rants is for and why I do it.  I think it’s good for any of you who’ve stumbled across this page.  It’s also good for me, to help stay focused on helpful tips and suggestions and, yes, the occasional rule.

           The other group think rules are for old-school losers who don’t get that spelling, formatting, and structure just hamper the creative process and will get overlooked when people see the inherent art in the writing.  Nothing matters past the pure art of words flowing out of their fingertips.  Because we all have fantastic stories to tell.  Don’t know how to spell that word?  That’s what spellchecker’s for.  Don’t know what the word means?  Well, they’ll get it from context.  Not in the mood to write? Then just wait for the muse to strike.  Someone said bad things about your writing?  Ignore them, what do they know?!  Nothing matters except being happy about your writing.