Good Habits & Discipline

[Readingandrighting]

I’ve been writing for twenty years and got good feedback from a friend who is a poet and good marks/feedback from a creative writing course I did. I have always struggled with confidence in my work though and I struggle with discipline, too.

I’d really appreciate your advice on the discipline of writing. I want 2021 to be the year I finally put myself out there and try to get published. I’m going to start small with getting a short story or poem published.

I know in Stephen King’s book he recommended setting a daily word count but I write a combination of poetry, short fiction and have started on a novel; so that might not always work.

Is it as simple as creating a schedule and sticking to it? I’d be so very grateful for advice as this has been burning away inside me for too long now — time to act!

@Koios

Thanks. I’ve just finished a crazy long day’s work but I’ll respond properly soon.

Thanks @Koios

That’s great about that opening paragraph & it’s a lovely story.

I agree that you can’t schedule creativity but in my case, I come up with lots of ideas in those moments of inspiration but I need to discipline myself to sit down & actually write the piece. I don’t struggle with inspiration but I struggle with momentum & completion & for that I think a schedule may be needed...? I feel I’d have done much better by now if my concentration & discipline were better.

As your a poet, this was the opener. 'There's something about the solitude of the high moors. A kind of unwritten understanding that here silence holds court and the smallest whisper is sin to the still air. You even find yourself speaking in hushed tones giving a reverence to the solace as you would perhaps in church temple or ancient hall.'

@Koios

That’s lovely: ‘sin to the still air.’ ♥️

I am a little bit in awe of writers who can schedule writing time and have a life outside of it. I can procrastinate like anyone, of course, but I find the hard bit is trying to fit life around writing. Inspiration sometimes takes a while to build up steam, and then I flow along for hours before I remember I need to walk the dog. Experience tells me that these deliberate breaks can actually assist me when I come back to the page, but it can be a challenge sometimes to turn off just in case I lose the thread completely. Only two nights ago I was drifting off to sleep, thinking about some dialogue, and before I knew it, a scene was forming and I had to jot it down before I could turn my head off to sleep.
I'm also a grumpy sod about being interrupted, which is obviously common right now with kids at home all the time. I'm not Jack Torrance levels of do-not-disturb, but it can still knock me well off kilter and take a while to concentrate again.

Everyone works differently, though. The tips that help one person might be a straight jacket to another. Whatever helps you write, be it schedule, different methods of recording ideas, reading other writers and getting a sense of what you like and don't like to read yourself, or even doing specific prompt exercises just to work the imagination muscles is worth doing.

I like this thread as I too struggle with discipline. Leaving the house to write in a library or café was what worked for me; so I’m finding it difficult these days.

I have printed off 2 progress charts for the year (the other one is for yoga) and colour in the box for the day when I've done my writing. One is surprisingly reluctant to break a run of coloured in boxes - sometimes it just gives me the push I need.
Also, I've learnt that the 1st 10 minutes or so is pretty terrible, then some kind of mojo kicks in, and I'm off.

Great idea! I’ve been recording it too but the coloured boxes is better than the way I’ve been doing it

I’m finding it hard to write these days because of the situation we’re in. I find it hard to let go enough . Maybe it’ll come back!