Wednesday 24 August 2016

The Writing Life

I am trying to finish the first draft of a children's book that I started last October. It is frickin' hard. Everytime I sit down to write, I have to resist the urge NOT to write. I have a series of well honed avoidance procedures to avoid the laying of font onto the blank page. My writing process goes something like this:


  • Drink coffee at a cafe. Surf social media.
  • Remonstrate self and get off social media.
  • Write a few sentences. 
  • Feel disillusioned about the crapness of the sentences just written.
  • Suddenly remember something urgent that needs doing. Such as Googling a random fact or Whatsapping a friend to say Hi.
  • Look at the time. Only an hour left before writing time is up.
  • Read through the last page that was written. Write a few more sentences.
  • Sigh. Look out window. Get more coffee.
  • Sit down. Get up. Go to the toilet.
  • Sit down. Feel a sense of urgency.
  • Call the Husband who is really busy at work. Moan about nothing. Look at self from above and think self needs a slap.
  • Write a paragraph.
  • Review total word count of the 'day's work'. 
  • Word count is 246 words.
  • Shit. Self imposed writing rule is 1000 words per session. Minimum.
  • Write nonsense for 10 minutes. No clue what I am writing about anymore.
  • Look at clock. 25 minutes left.
  • Force myself to write up to 900 words, knowing at least 800 of these words will be cut in a future edit.
  • Eavesdrop on the guy sitting next to me in Starbucks.
  • Decide to write a random blog entry on writing.
  • Write the blog entry in 5 minutes.
  • Check phone. Clear emails and messages.
  • 10 minutes left.
  • Write. Time's up.
  • 1251 words further in to a story that is a complete mess.

Welcome to first draft hell.

Amen to that