The Kissy Bits #7 - Writing Discipline and Writing Commitment
Writing Discipline
- Just 100 words a day will get you there?
- Most writers hate writing but love having written.
- Work out your writing muscles each and every day.
- Why can't we do it?
- What works for you?
- My to-do list
Writing Commitment
- Don't quit your day job? What day job?
- You only get out what you put in
- How much does writing figure in your life?
- How many novels do you want to write?
- Writing time + editing time = finished MS
- are you an XYZ with a writing hobby or a writer with a second job?
Next week: The Chick Lit show!
Listen to the show
posted by Kiki @ 10:01 am
4 comments
4 Comments:
Hey Kiki,
Great show. I got home from work and there it was waiting for me.
I love the analogy comparing a writer to a golfer. Anyther way to look at it is like a weight lifter. You don't start out lifting 100 pounds, you start out with 10 pounds and work your way up to 100 pounds.
It's easy for a starting out writer to get anxious to get started and leap in and blast out 10000 words and then peter out and wonder what happened. It takes time and patience to get to the point where you can write many words per day.
Myself, I'm not a daily writer. I write when the mood hits, but when it does, I can write 8000-9000 words in a sitting.
The biggest thing for a starting writer (or a writer's blocked writer) is to work up to a pace that fits your personality and lifestyle. If something doesn't work, don't assume you can't do it, try something else until you find something that does work.
As you said, build a list (be it daily or weekly) and check items off as you go. It's amazing how fast you see items get checked off.
Oh, and Kiki, you asked for someone that writes 100 words per day every day, I don't, but I've averaged 200,000 words a year for the past three years. I hope to see more of those words in print this year. We'll see. :)
Pod On!
Hey JR.
I know plenty of people that put out plenty of words a year (and your output is definitely up there with *very impressive*). But I don't know anyone who can amange every single day. So I just think it's time to look at this goal realistically.
I really like your weight lifter analogy, too. It's a different way of looking at working out your writing muscles.
Thanks for listening!
Kiki! You are a talented budding podcasting superstar! I really enjoy your podcast, even though I do not write romance fiction. It is always useful to me in some way. I would love to do a Q&A with you on my blog, www.cesartorres.net. I cannot find contact information on your site. Can you please contact me and let me know if you would be up for an interview on my blog? I write about topics for writers and publishers. Pretty please? You can contact me through the contact page of my blog. Hope to hear from you.
Cesar
Kiki I've been downloading your podcast for a few weeks but haven't had a chance to actually listen until this week, so you're getting some belated comments from me.
I've not hit every day on my writing discipline, and for the last year or so was barely getting ANYTHING written. BUT this year on my website Wordtrip.com I decided I needed an attainable goal, and using the NaNoWriMo "challenge people and you'll be shamed into working" methodology started a little challenge with some of my other Wordtrippers. We're trying to write 335 words a day, 6 days a week, for all of 2006. The goal is that it will be around 100K words by the end of the year. Some of us are working on short fiction, some on just general writing challenges, and some on longer works. Right now we're all struggling to keep at pace (and I think only two of us have managed to do that), but having people there challenging you to keep up with them has worked wonders for us.
I was writing fairly regularly in 2004, but in 2005 I couldn't keep anything going (probably the munchkin #3 that was on the way distracting me), hence I started the challenge. So I took January and most of February and started a new story almost every day, just to get the habit in place and keep things moving. Midway through February I started working on one story that I'm now a few thousand words into, and it has been much easier for me to write on that one story since I've had my writting habit in place now for quite a while.
I will concede that the writing in general is a bit dodgy, and that my writing time is usually a half hour at midnight right before going to bed (only time somebody in the house doesn't need Daddy). BUT I feel so much better having done that writing, even when I doze off midway through a sentence and wake up to find out I've been spewing gibberish into the keyboard for the last paragraph.
Thanks for the great podcast (and I can't recall which episode it was, but when you were talking about the snarky lit-fic vs romance writers and used the term Word Wank I almost spit coffee all over my car in a fit of laughter).
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