No time for tomfoolery

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 04:34:43 GMT

I've decided to stop feeling sorry for myself, to stop regretting going to college. I'm manning up with my bad self. I'm taking back the joy I used to have in writing. I'm going back to where I told a story because I had a story to tell. I wanted to hear it, so I wrote it. The simple of joy of creating, without the internal pressure of who's going to read it, of worrying over getting published, not worrying whether I suck or not.

I've decided the best way to do this is just to write. Get all the awkwardness over and done with so I can start writing again. I seriously, seriously want to get paid for writing fabulous books, but before I can do that, I have to actually write something fabulous. And before I can write fabulously, I have to give myself permission to write really, really badly. Or, in Annie Lamott's word, write a shitty first draft:

For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts. (from Bird by Bird)

I have a hard time doing anything without deadlines. Not that I meet deadlines, but having them forces me to get something, anything done. And under pressure, sometimes I produce diamonds. Tiny, infinitesimal diamonds, but still diamonds. I am going to start off small, and build.

My goal for this week is going to be 7k. That's not a lot. I mean, during NaNoWriMo, I'd write more than that in five days. But since this isn't NaNoWriMo and I can't write that intensely all the time (as well as the fact that I haven't been writing for awhile and I need to get back into the swing of things), I think seven k is a good place to start. If it's too easy, I can make next week's goal higher. If it's too hard, well, I'll keep it at 7k. We'll see how much I can push myself.

I'm off to work on an outline. Fun fun fun.

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Melancholy Mondays

No time for tomfoolery