Planning Your Writing
By Orna Ross.
We’re writers. Our work is spurred by inspiration. We don’t like to plan. Plans are mundane and boring, okay for business types, but not for creative free spirits.
Through my work with Font, I meet a lot of writers with this attitude but I’m not convinced. It sounds to me like one more form of Writers’ Resistence (the term I prefer to Writers’ Block) — and a pretty cliched one, at that.
I’ve seen it too often to doubt it: writers who plan write more, and usually better, than writers who don’t.
We are now more than two weeks into a new year. How much writing have you done so far? If you’re disappointed with your output, maybe it’s time to make a plan. Here’s how:
1. Imagine
2. Test & Modify
3. Schedule
1. Imagine. It’s New Year’s Eve, 2008. You’re sitting at a candlelit table with your beloved, clinking glasses – toasting your writing achievements of the past year. (Note: that was writing achievements, not publication). What are they?
- In 2008 I completed the first draft of a book I’d long to write for years?
- In 2008 I wrote three short stories that I’m proud of?
- In 2008, I established a daily flow of 1500 words a day?
You decide — what would make you happiest in that moment (besides having a beloved to clink glasses with).
2. Test & Reduce. Most of us when we imagine set our sights too high. Will you really complete a 200,000 first draft in a year? How many words a month is that? A week? A day? How many days per week? Is that really achievable? If yes, great. If not, what is?
Give yourself plenty of time for this part of the exercise. How much/what will you write this year? Put a word count on it. Now break it down by doing simple division: how many words is that in six months, three months, one month, one week, each writing session?
Once you’ve settle on a desired output, reduce it. Yes, really.
Whatever feels manageable to you, it is almost certain that it’s a bit (or a lot) too hard. Writing is best done a little bit at a time — and kept in the zone of enjoyment not discipline. As a rule, six hours writing over six days will produce far better work than six hours in one day.
So modify your aims to allow for unforeseen setbacks and planner’s exhuberence. Hemingway called this leaving a little in the inkwell for tomorrow.
3. Schedule. Now break your aim right down into small chunks of time. How many hours each day will you do? What hours will they be?
Writers who’ve done courses or coaching with Font know that we recommend doing your writing first thing in the day, for two reasons — one creative, one practical. What’s written first is closer to that inner world that strengthens in us while we are asleep. And what’s done first in the day tends to actually get done.
So what are you waiting for? Get planning — then get writing!
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January 29th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
[…] Ross presents Planning Your Writing posted at WRITING ADVICE & PUBLISHING ADVICE from Font, saying, “Article on the […]
February 28th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
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