thinking about thinking about doing the writing

[lagilman]

The secret to finishing: open file. write. save. repeat every session.

Sometimes the hardest thing you'll do every day is open the damn file.


I was working with M this week, and she got a call from another architect she's working with on a project. I don't know what he was saying, but I distinctly heard her say "I don't know, just sit down and do it?"

Yes. Doesn't matter who you are, or what you're trying to get done: AiC is still a valid and effective means to the end (*pun apology*). Maybe that's why it's so difficult? Because if you don't open the file, if you don't sit down and do it, you still have possibility. Once the pen is uncapped, or the cursor blinks, you've narrowed your options down to two: write, or don't.

Mind you, I am a Procrastinator Supreme. There are things that I want to do that I haven't gotten around to doing yet, simply because I am at heart a lazy beast who needs a Staff, or at least a considerate cabana boy. But every day, I open the file. I stare at the words and think about what needs to come next. Often I write. Sometimes I just think, or do research, or read relevant passages in other peoples' books. But once the page is in front of me, more often than not the words will come. AiC engages muse.


I fervently, btw, disagree with Yoda. "Do or Do Not," yeah. But there is always try, because if you don't try, you can't surprise yourself, you can't exceed. But that's a thinking for another time.

Comments

[peggin.livejournal.com]

I know we work in very different fields, but I understand exactly what you mean with this. Last year, the very first corporate return I was given to work on was one where they file in 35 states. I looked at it, and my mind kind of boggled, and I put it aside and worked on something simpler. It took a few days before I actually opened the file and started working on it, but opening that file was the hardest part.

As for the Yoda quote... I agree with you that there is always "try," but I always thought about that quote as referring to somebody who *can* do something but is afraid or lazy or something. Someone who is saying "I'll try" as a cop-out, so they have an excuse when they fail. Kind of like when we were kids, and anytime my mother told my brother to do something, he would ask her if she wanted a good job or the best he could do. She would always tell him to do a good job, because she knew "the best he could do" was no where near the best he could do.

Like me with that huge tax return. I *know* how to do tax returns, there was no "try" involved. It was just that the size of the tax return was a little overwhelming to me. If I'd said "I'll try", it would have been because I was setting myself up with an excuse for not doing a very good job.

OTOH, "I'll try" would be a very legitimate thing for me to say if I was going to set out to, for example, write a novel.

[lagilman]

OTOH, "I'll try" would be a very legitimate thing for me to say if I was going to set out to, for example, write a novel.

Exactly. Why limit yourself to the things you already know (or are pretty sure) you can do? Where's the achievement in that?

I know I can write X. But can I write Y? Dunno. Let's try.


I know I can speak some French. But can I do it dropped into the middle of Paris, on my own? Dunno. Let's try.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

I know I can speak some French. But can I do it dropped into the middle of Paris, on my own? Dunno. Let's try.

Doable. But don't skimp on the sleep; your hard drives are going to be spinning at full tilt all day long for at least the first few days.

[skidspoppe.livejournal.com]

Once the pen is uncapped, or the cursor blinks, you've narrowed your options down to two: write, or don't.

Sometimes it's the simplest things, said plainly, which strike the most fear into our hearts.

[girasole.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it's the simplest things, said plainly, which strike the most fear into our hearts.

Yea verily.

[miladyinsanity.livejournal.com]

I thought I had trained myself to open the story file the first thing each time I switched on my laptop.

Today was the first day in ages and ages that I didn't. *headdesk*

[windrose.livejournal.com]

I am another horrible procrastinator. Witness how I have wasted the entire afternoon dithering about which dress to buy for an event that doesn't even take place until June.

[lagilman]

well, at least you're not procrastinating your trip wardrobe?

[natmerc.livejournal.com]

I am in the midst of mid-sceneitis, and mid-bookitis at the same time. I don't want to write the end of the scene because its the juncture where I have to choose one of two ways the book can go, and I'm also hating the book this week.

Sometimes opening the damn file is hard. *Goes off to open the file.*

[lagilman]

Sometimes opening the damn file is hard

Sometimes it's the hardest thing you can do. And then you do it, and you look back and think "okay, yes. I can do that."

And then you're reluctant all over again on the morning. Because, you know? It's scary, this storytelling thing.

[natmerc.livejournal.com]

I'm also getting nervous because I can see the end of this first draft coming in another 50 pages or so (roughly one month).

And then I get into new territory -- the dreaded editing. I've always either 1) given up by this point, or 2) suddenly switched to writing something new and leaving the old novel hanging unfinished, or 3) taken a writing sabbatical.

This whole "finishing a draft"? Editing it and sending it out to be (probably) cruelly ignored? Very new. Still... goals in life and all that.