Writing Discipline.

I’m often asked during school visits, talks and interviews ‘If you could give one tip to those who would like to be writers, what would it be?’. Of course there are many tips I could give, but the one I normally respond with is:

Do a little bit every day. Even if you just write a few sentences, it is amazing how quickly your piece of work will grow.

In my early days as a writer I followed this maxim religiously. These days, however, I tend to write in seasons. (A month or two of writing, then switching to promotional work, school visits, editing etc) This gives me some fallow time in which stories can develop in my mind and my desire to write them down builds until I’m desperate to get back to my laptop. I think I’d struggle to write every day right through the year now, particularly given the intensity of the days when I do write.

I have just entered a writing season and my daily goal is to write 1500 – 2000 words each day. Sometimes the words come easily, but more often than not I spend much of my day staring at the screen attempting to picture the events taking place in the story with enough clarity to make transferring those images into words possible. My discipline to make this happen is to begin writing at about 1030am – I’m not an early morning person, so I use this time to catch up with emails, blogs etc. I stop for lunch at about 1200-1230, take an hour off and then write again from 1300-1330 through until 1700. This is normally enough time to achieve my writing goal for the day.

There are times when I struggle and don’t reach my desired number of words, but so long as I’ve put in the hours, I feel content that I’ve done a good days work. As a result, I’ve never really encountered ‘writer’s block’. Yes, there are days when I don’t feel like writing. Yes, there are times when I dread pulling my laptop out of its bag as I know it will not be an easy writing day, but I do it anyway.

I view it this way – when I was in the RAF there were days when I didn’t feel like going flying. Did I just tell my boss ‘Sorry, sir, but I don’t feel like flying today. I think I’ll just pop down the pub instead.’ Of course I didn’t! Writing is now my living. If I don’t do it, no one else is going to jump in and do it for me.

Yes, writing should be fun. Yes, I very much enjoy creating new worlds and writing my stories … most of the time. For those who are writing as a hobby, then missing the odd day here and there really doesn’t matter. But beware – as with any discipline, the moment you let it begin to slip, you start down a slippery slope from which it can be very hard to recover. Before you know it your daily writing has become weekly, or a couple of days a month, or never.

If you are serious about becoming a productive writer, discipline is essential.