You Don’t Have To Write, You Get To Write

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I was reading an article recently about a man who is a single parent of a very special needs child.

He said that his life seemed difficult and often he felt it was unfair that he was always so busy and that his son required his constant care.

Then one day he had an epiphany and suddenly his life was so much easier and pleasurable. He didn’t change a thing about his life. He still got up every day and did the same things he’d always done. The only thing that he did change was his attitude.

It all happened when he was showering with his son one night (his son can’t shower on his own) and he was grumping to himself about never being able to shower on his own because he always had to shower with his son.

Then for some unknown reason he suddenly stopped and thought, “I don’t HAVE to shower with my son, I GET to shower with him.”

And that was it. His life changed in that moment. He decided that from then on, he would stop saying ‘have to’ and say ‘get to’ instead. And that one small decision changed his whole life.

I then read about a woman whose friend had an auto-immune disease and could no longer move and needed constant nursing.

She said that seeing her friend’s predicament changed her life because it made her appreciate things instead of complaining.

She said that whenever she woke up during the night and had to turnover, instead of her usual irritable thought about being awake when she didn’t want to be, she’d think to herself that she didn’t have to turn over, she gets to turnover, which is more than her friend could do now. Her friend had to wait to be turned over, no matter how long she was awake and how uncomfortable she was. She didn’t get to turn over anymore.

Thinking that we get to do something instead of having to do it, puts everything in a new perspective of realising how lucky we are that we get to do so much.

And it can be applied to writing when you really don’t feel like it.

Just think that you don’t have to write, you get to write.

And then sit down and enjoy it.

Mission Critical For Life: Start Living Your Life on Your Terms by Pursuing Your True Life Mission

https://cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/MCFL.html

This is better Than a Writing Prompt

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Writing prompts are such useful things for getting our creative minds working. They also give us a starting idea of what to write about which is all a writer needs to get going.

But writing prompts are just that. A bump to get you started writing. Nothing more.

So, what if, instead of using random prompts, you look for paying markets and writing competitions and use them as prompts.

You don’t have to submit them, just use them as writing practice. There’s a lot of advantage of doing it this way.

1.    You’ll be practicing writing what the industry is looking for, so you’ll know what kind of writing sells         and what subjects/topics are currently popular.

2.    You’ll get used to writing to deadlines. Having a limited time to write can give you the bit of pressure you need to get your writing done. Writing to tight deadlines can also help improve your writing by not giving you time to second-guess yourself or to try and edit as you write, both of which are fatal to good writing.

3.    You can submit your writing if you want to and earn money. And because you’re only practicing your writing, it doesn’t matter if it gets accepted or not or if it wins a free competition or not. You’re just getting used to being a regular writer.

There really are no disadvantages to using writing markets and competitions as writing prompts.

It’s great practice, gets you writing regularly, and gets you used to deadlines.

Plus, you can submit your work if you want to, and even if it’s not accepted, you can find another market for it later. Or not.

And it can really get your creative mind working, which is what using prompts is all about.

Monthly Challenge Writing Series

https://cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/MCWS1.html

Writing a Million Words a Year

I was reading a story recently about a writer, who already had two traditionally published novels, when she had a baby. She also had a full-time job. He husband, in his infinite wisdom, decided that writing, working, and family obligations were too much for her, so for the time being he said she should stop writing, and instead spend her time at home spending time with him and their new daughter.

Stop writing? What a dangerous thing to say to a writer.

Fast forward a year later, and she tells him that she's just had her latest book accepted by her publisher.

It turns out, she'd been using her lunch hour at work to write her novel.

Her husband was furious and accused her of being unfaithful. They had a huge fight about it and she was upset because he still wasn't speaking to her.

I thought, wow. This woman has a full-time job and is clearly a good mother and wife, yet her husband is angry at what she does at lunch time at work.

Writing during lunch at work is also how J K Rowling wrote her second Harry Potter book. Her first one was written when she was an unemployed single parent (which she hated) so she got a job once her first book was published and started her second. She wrote so much at work that one of her female colleagues eventually asked her if she was having an affair because she always turned down 'lunch with the girls'.

What all this goes to demonstrate is how easy it is to write a book if your determined to do so. And the important word here is DETERMINED. Just one hour a day helped these writers produce best-selling novels.

This year I plan to have my best writing year ever and write a book a month. So far I'm on track. I'm actually ahead of schedule.

I'm also currently reading a book about pulp fiction writers who used to be only paid by word count so they had to write a lot in order to earn a living.

They used average a million words a year. Some even wrote one and a half million words a year.

So I worked it out (with the help of my trusty calculator). 

To write a million words a year, if you wrote for 5 days a week, you'd need to write 3,800 words a day. 

Even if you only wrote during your lunch hour on week days, at 1,000 words an hour, you could still write 261,000 words a year (261 working days a  year).

So if you want to up your game (and it's certainly got my interest) to a million words a year, you need to write 3,800 words a day, 5 days a week.

Or if you want to write every day, it's a mere 2,700 words a day.

How about it?

What's your average daily word count?

If you don't know, try writing as much as you can in one week, and then divide it by 7. 

That will give you your daily average.

Then try and beat it every week.

Start today.

Writer Without A Clue

I bought an eBook a few weeks ago and it was fascinating to read.

It’s called “Writing Into The Dark” and it’s written by prolific author, Dean Wesley Smith.

He has written hundreds of books and short stories and this book is all about his writing process.

He calls what he does “Writing Into The Dark” because he begins all his novels and short stories (which are not so short because they’re all thousands of words long) and he has no clue how the story will start or end.

He begins with just a few words, or an incomplete idea in his head, and then he just starts writing with no idea as to how the story will develop or end. He doesn’t even know who the characters are until he makes them up as he goes along.

Writing this way would scare the pants off me. I can’t imagine sitting down to write a novel and not even know what it’s going to be about.

I have done free-writing exercises before where I’m given 3 random words and I have to write about them, or write a story that includes them, for 5 minutes without stopping.

I can actually write ¾ page this way, but it feels weird to have no direction with what I’m writing. Yet strangely enough, what I write in those 5 minutes without any forethought, is quite good. In fact I’ve expanded some of them into published articles and stories.

So maybe ‘Writing Into The Dark’ is a creative way to do things.

After all, it’s the way Dean Wesley Smith has been writing novels for years.

Either way, it was fascinating to read his book about his whole writing process.

https://amzn.to/3pYpS2B