This is excellent advice. I do make space for an hour every day to write and I try for 400 words a day, or an hour editing/planning/researching my project. Shrinking it down to fewer words and not beating myself up if I am not "feeling" it has made it infinitely easier to move forward.
When I started that daily routine, I was feeling the same way. Frustrated by the idea of not doing anything at all. So I decided to try for 100 words a day (vs. 5 min). Over time I upped that to at least 400 or at least one hour. Mostly what I was doing was trying to work towards manageable consistency, which is what you are essentially advocating for here. When you have consistency, it helps come back over and over, and by doing so you create flow. I'm guessing you have probably found that the more that time compounds, the more you are living in the book itself, and the more you can access that flow. Like your time has compounded, my words compounded. My 400 words is rarely 400 words, and more often 600 or 800 or 1400. It's a great feeling isn't it?!
And for the days when the writing isn't working, I still commit to an hour of doing SOMETHING toward my project, whether it's plotting, planning or researching. Some days it's just watching YouTube videos related to my topic because that's all I can manage. But I'm still contributing when I'm ruminating in such a way, and best of all, I'm not beating myself up for not writing.
Love the phrase all-or-something thinker! Genius, and gold for writers. It's worked for me for years.
I was lucky enough to meet a writer who passed on her coach's advice: a lot of writing can happen in 15 minutes. Somehow that's gotten me to open a file that I've dodged all day and do something.
Cathy, you're the one who gave the brilliant anecdote I use often in talking about how to manage writing time and writing motivation. If I remember correctly, years ago, you were measuring writing time in hours, and found yourself often with chunks of less-than-hours because you were, say, early for an appointment. But since you were logging -hours-, you'd just not write during those chunks. And then you realized that if you logged your writing time in -minutes- you could -use- all those random minutes, and they'd add up to something. Something! I've been passing on your wisdom (with citation!) for a while now--and learning from it.
THANK YOU! I am so guilty of the all or nothing thinking. This was great.
This is excellent advice. I do make space for an hour every day to write and I try for 400 words a day, or an hour editing/planning/researching my project. Shrinking it down to fewer words and not beating myself up if I am not "feeling" it has made it infinitely easier to move forward.
When I started that daily routine, I was feeling the same way. Frustrated by the idea of not doing anything at all. So I decided to try for 100 words a day (vs. 5 min). Over time I upped that to at least 400 or at least one hour. Mostly what I was doing was trying to work towards manageable consistency, which is what you are essentially advocating for here. When you have consistency, it helps come back over and over, and by doing so you create flow. I'm guessing you have probably found that the more that time compounds, the more you are living in the book itself, and the more you can access that flow. Like your time has compounded, my words compounded. My 400 words is rarely 400 words, and more often 600 or 800 or 1400. It's a great feeling isn't it?!
And for the days when the writing isn't working, I still commit to an hour of doing SOMETHING toward my project, whether it's plotting, planning or researching. Some days it's just watching YouTube videos related to my topic because that's all I can manage. But I'm still contributing when I'm ruminating in such a way, and best of all, I'm not beating myself up for not writing.
Loving these posts!
Love the phrase all-or-something thinker! Genius, and gold for writers. It's worked for me for years.
I was lucky enough to meet a writer who passed on her coach's advice: a lot of writing can happen in 15 minutes. Somehow that's gotten me to open a file that I've dodged all day and do something.
Cathy, you're the one who gave the brilliant anecdote I use often in talking about how to manage writing time and writing motivation. If I remember correctly, years ago, you were measuring writing time in hours, and found yourself often with chunks of less-than-hours because you were, say, early for an appointment. But since you were logging -hours-, you'd just not write during those chunks. And then you realized that if you logged your writing time in -minutes- you could -use- all those random minutes, and they'd add up to something. Something! I've been passing on your wisdom (with citation!) for a while now--and learning from it.