Four Words To Write By

There are a lot of inspirational quotes out there. Every writer has something stuck up somewhere which they look at when they need a kick in the rear end. And as much as I love motivational quotes, the type that make you feel all fuzzy and warm inside, today I'm going to share with you the only four words I have near where I write.

These came from Ray Bradbury's Zen and the Art of Writing, and they are three simple concepts in four words:

Work.

Relaxation.

Don't Think.

Let that sink in for a moment. 

Work. If you want to be a writer, especially a prolific writer, you need to realise that you are going to have to consider it work. You can't just wait for inspiration to strike, you have to sit down and keep going until it does.

Relaxation. But that doesn't mean writing should be a stress. It is your relaxation time, your time to let your mind run free as your fingers tap dance to keep up.  Take a deep breath and smile to yourself, because whether you feel it or not, you are doing what you love most in the world.

And finally, Don't Think. Don't try to analyse what you are doing, what is about to happen, how you are writing, what your audience will think of it, etc. That can all come later. Right now, in this moment, just let your creative youth take over and let go of your critic. 

At first I wasn't convinced of the power of these four words, but stuck them up on individual cue cards anyway. And every time I see them, I take a deep breath, smile to myself, and let my brain drift off.... oh, sorry. 

So, what words work for you? 

Treat Your Ideas Like Cats

Once again I'm referring to Ray Bradbury's 'Zen in the Art of Writing', but this image is just too good to be locked away in a book when it can be free in cyberspace.

Okay, alright, it probably is already anyway, but I'm bringing it to you, my little audience of writers and readers, because it is gorgeous.

p. 134:

"As soon as things get difficult, I walk away. That's the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you. If you try to approach a cat and pick it up, hell, it won't let you do it. 

You've got to say, 'Well, to hell with you.' And the cat says 'Wait a minute. He's not behaving the way most humans do.' Then the cat follows you out of curiosity: 'Well, what's wrong with you that you don't love me?' 

Well, that's what an idea is. See? You just say, 'Well, hell, I don't need depression. I don't need worry. I don't need to push.' Then idea will follow me. When they're off-guard, and ready to be born, I'll turn around and grab them."

As my parents have a very... haughty? ... aloof?... self-centred, egotistical and with a divinity complex?... cat, this image works very well for me. Though I'm not sure if I can really convince my ideas I don't need them, as they know too well that I am totally at a loss without them. Oh well, I can't convince the cat either.

Good writing over the weekend, little cat chasers.

Ray Bradbury's Word Association Process

I've been reading Ray Bradbury's 'Zen in the Art of Writing', which is actually a collection of short essays on writing. 

First of all, let me just say how useful a collection of essays is for motivation. I've been keeping it beside my bed and on the mornings when I can't force myself straight up and to my writing chair, I roll over and grab this instead. I can read one complete essay without cutting too much into my writing time, and be inspired. 

Which leads me to my second point: there is so much I want to steal from this book to share with you, so if you end up getting a few posts, please don't blame me. If you read the book you will understand why. 

I think the first thing I should share is to say that Ray Bradbury is what most writers aspire to be (well, other than the fact he's rich and famous) and something I definitely feel I'm not: he's a writing enthusiast. He bursts with writing.  He describes it as an explosion every morning. How awesome would that be? 

The question then rises: if I follow his process, might I have the same experience? 

Well, I will leave that to all of you to test out and get back to us with.

In the essay titled 'Just This Side of Byzantium: Dandelion Wine' he gives an image of how his writing changed, and a description of how that came about. 

Please excuse me for the long quote, but I really don't think I could say it better.

p. 79.

'Dandelion Wine, like most of my books and stories, was a surprise. I began to learn the nature of such surprises, thank God, when I was fairly young as a writer.' [keep in mind he decided to become a writer at age 11, and wrote 1,000 words a day from then on.] 'Before that, like every beginner, I thought you could beat, pummel, and thrash an idea into existence. Under such treatment, of course, any decent idea folds up its paws, turns on its back, fixes its eyes on eternity, and dies.

It was with great relief, then, that in my early twenties I floundered into a word-association process in which I simply got out of bed each morning, walked to my desk, and put down any word or series of words that happened along in my head.

 

I would then take arms against the word, or for it, and bring on an assortment of characters to weigh the word and show me its meaning in my own life. An hour or two hours later, to my amazement, a new story would be finished and done. The surprise was total and lovely. I soon found that I would have to work this way for the rest of my life.'

He makes it sound so wonderful, so easy. And perhaps it is. 

If anyone wants to test out his word association process, I recommend reading a bit more about it, but please report back on how you find it. 

I am also interested to see how this applies to novels. Bradbury worked largely in short stories. Could the same be used repeatedly, day after day, to drive forward a novel?  Would it become disjointed or leave out the necessary low points where the reader can catch their breath? 

As to my own writing. I have left Wonderland and the realm of children's writing. It had lost its glamour for me. Instead I am working on a supernatural thriller. It would be horror, except I can't write that without frightening myself. Even now I play with images in my mind to see if they are too scary to put down. I am going slowly again, but better slow and steady than nothing at all. I did 3,000 yesterday and 3,500 today.

So let me know if any of you experiment with Word Association.

Words, Words, Words: Why You Should Get Them Out

Stephen King used to say in interviews that he wrote everyday except Christmas and Easter. He reveals in ‘On Writing’ that this is a lie. He writes everyday, full stop. He aims for 2,000 words a day.

Dorothea Brande recommends writing 1,000 words a day.

Ray Bradbury in his book ‘Zen in the Art of Writing’ states that he has written 1,000 words a day since he was eleven.

But why? Should we all be doing this if we want to be writers? Is it the daily factor that’s important, or the word limit, or both? Can we write 2,000 words every second day and still get results?

From my research into motivational methods, development of talent, and sports training, I think there are three major aspects behind the commands to write everyday (I’m leaving myself some leeway in case I think of more later).  Hopefully spelling them out will help you to devise a writing program that will turn you into the best possible writer.

First, as pointed out by Writing Excuses Season 1 Episode 3: your first one million words are probably going to be crap. Only after that will you get better. So, might as well get them out of the way as soon as you can.

Second, if you want to become an expert at anything, studies across the fields show that it takes around 10,000 hours of good practice. That’s three hours a day for 10 years. It’s not just words, but amount of time actually practicing that pays off.

Finally, writing is like any exercise: one day off and you notice, two days off and your critics notice, three days off and even your fans notice. Your abilities to find the right word, express things just so, keep in the voice of the characters etc. start to fade much faster than we would like to think.

So, it seems that there is good evidence to support writers’ claims that you should write everyday and aim for a specific number of words that seems high to you.

And by writing a draft every two weeks, I’m hoping to speed up the process. I’ll have my first million words out in a year (not counting all the words I’ve done already, or the words I’m doing for blog posts, emails, work etc) and hopefully knock over my 10,000 hours in the five years while I’m at it. Just need to get myself more into the habit of writing everyday.

Next time I'll do a post on essential tips for forming a habit.