TECH: Drops of Water?
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writercisesOriginal Posting 23 June 2009
Writer's Digest, February 2008, pages 32 to 35, have an article by Bill O'Hanlon with the title, "baby steps." The subtitle is "Stop obsessing about writing a book. Instead, spend 15 minutes writing one page, five times a week for a year."
The key is small steps. O'Hanlon refers to a Chinese proverb: enough shovels of earth -- a mountain. Enough pails of water -- a river. So how do you do it?
1. Small assignments. Instead of focusing on the whole task, look at the smallest piece of the task. A page a week, a chapter a week, set yourself some small assignments. O'Hanlon suggests starting with a simple outline, then elaborating that with ideas for anecdotes, quotations, exercises, scenes, plot points, which characters are in which scene and where it takes place. You may only be able to do one scene or one chapter in detail, but that's OK. Put the detailed points on index cards or some other portable form, and write that part. Then do it again.
2. Small increments. A lot of us prefer a big chunk of time, but it's a lot easier to commit a small piece. Try five or 10 or 15 minutes. Commit yourself to spending at least that much time in each session. First thing in the morning, lunchtime, fit it into your schedule and do it. Write for five minutes and you'll probably have about a page of words. Write a page every day for a year -- that's a book! A page every day for the next week? Or maybe three times a week for the next month? Give yourself small assignments with small chunks of time committed. You might be surprised at how fast it adds up.
3. Break the mental barrier. Big projects are often mentally and emotionally scary. But when you do it a little bit at a time, you can eat the elephant. Look at where you're blocking yourself -- why is that the focus of your attention? Try shifting your focus to something else. Maybe you're fretting about finding a publisher -- don't worry about that until you write the book! Write for the pleasure of it, just to get a bunch of words down. Instead of trying to be the great American writer, do it better than that writer you didn't like did.
O'Hanlon suggests the psychotherapy technique of externalizing. Identify the inner voices or ideas that are stopping you from writing. Then consider them as external. Take that voice or idea and think about it as something that somebody outside of you is saying.
Some people find it useful to do some physical externalization. Writing the ideas that block you down on a piece of paper, and then burning them up. Or carry a rock around as a representation of your fears. When you get tired of the extra weight, get rid of it. Incidentally, O'Hanlon suggests that a search for "narrative therapy" will provide more information about this.
4. Develop your identity as a writer. What do you identify yourself as? Are you a plumber who occasionally writes, or are you a writer? Thinking of yourself as a writer, and doing things that you think a writer should do, helps.
That's O'Hanlon's article. Part of it is the notion of focusing on small assignments in small chunks of time, instead of trying to conquer the mountain in one enormous burst of effort. The other part is taking a look at our own mental blocks and identity.
Exercise: for the next week, take the work in progress and consider the smallest piece that you could do? Can you break it into one page pieces? Commit yourself to writing for five minutes. Take a look at how it adds up.
Write.
Writer's Digest, February 2008, pages 32 to 35, have an article by Bill O'Hanlon with the title, "baby steps." The subtitle is "Stop obsessing about writing a book. Instead, spend 15 minutes writing one page, five times a week for a year."
The key is small steps. O'Hanlon refers to a Chinese proverb: enough shovels of earth -- a mountain. Enough pails of water -- a river. So how do you do it?
1. Small assignments. Instead of focusing on the whole task, look at the smallest piece of the task. A page a week, a chapter a week, set yourself some small assignments. O'Hanlon suggests starting with a simple outline, then elaborating that with ideas for anecdotes, quotations, exercises, scenes, plot points, which characters are in which scene and where it takes place. You may only be able to do one scene or one chapter in detail, but that's OK. Put the detailed points on index cards or some other portable form, and write that part. Then do it again.
2. Small increments. A lot of us prefer a big chunk of time, but it's a lot easier to commit a small piece. Try five or 10 or 15 minutes. Commit yourself to spending at least that much time in each session. First thing in the morning, lunchtime, fit it into your schedule and do it. Write for five minutes and you'll probably have about a page of words. Write a page every day for a year -- that's a book! A page every day for the next week? Or maybe three times a week for the next month? Give yourself small assignments with small chunks of time committed. You might be surprised at how fast it adds up.
3. Break the mental barrier. Big projects are often mentally and emotionally scary. But when you do it a little bit at a time, you can eat the elephant. Look at where you're blocking yourself -- why is that the focus of your attention? Try shifting your focus to something else. Maybe you're fretting about finding a publisher -- don't worry about that until you write the book! Write for the pleasure of it, just to get a bunch of words down. Instead of trying to be the great American writer, do it better than that writer you didn't like did.
O'Hanlon suggests the psychotherapy technique of externalizing. Identify the inner voices or ideas that are stopping you from writing. Then consider them as external. Take that voice or idea and think about it as something that somebody outside of you is saying.
Some people find it useful to do some physical externalization. Writing the ideas that block you down on a piece of paper, and then burning them up. Or carry a rock around as a representation of your fears. When you get tired of the extra weight, get rid of it. Incidentally, O'Hanlon suggests that a search for "narrative therapy" will provide more information about this.
4. Develop your identity as a writer. What do you identify yourself as? Are you a plumber who occasionally writes, or are you a writer? Thinking of yourself as a writer, and doing things that you think a writer should do, helps.
That's O'Hanlon's article. Part of it is the notion of focusing on small assignments in small chunks of time, instead of trying to conquer the mountain in one enormous burst of effort. The other part is taking a look at our own mental blocks and identity.
Exercise: for the next week, take the work in progress and consider the smallest piece that you could do? Can you break it into one page pieces? Commit yourself to writing for five minutes. Take a look at how it adds up.
Write.
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