Again, in the spirit of keeping writing no matter what’s going on as we approach our final week of NaNoWriMo, I want to talk to you about keeping it moving.
One of the problems I had (even this morning as I wrote) throughout this process were days that I sat in front of the screen and wrote words that felt awful to write. I mean, they felt terrible. As though I was trying to write in a foreign language, upside down, while listening to another language being taught to me. But I still kept typing to my goal.
I’m going to take a quote from Joanna Penn on this one.
“When you’re reading your work, the words will all look the same whether you were feeling bad when you wrote them or good.”
Yes, that’s a great idea, isn’t it? You’re not going to know how you felt (for the most part) when you wrote the scene. You’re just going to have the words. And no matter what, upon re-write, you have to reshape them. No one that reads your final draft is going to know how you felt when you wrote them either.
So here are some ways to keep moving when you don’t feel like it.
1) Be moved by the emotion of the fact that you’ve established a daily writing habit, over a beautiful masterpiece that was enjoyable to write. Now, this idea is eclipsed by the joy of writing that awesome scene, sometimes. But you can’t depend on that emotional high every time you sit down in front of a blank page.
2) As a professional, there are days when you don’t feel like doing what you do, though you still love being a professional. Think of writing a little more like a business and less like sitting in a field of flowers allowing creativity to roll across your free-spirited soul. Yeah, that picture seems invigorating, but it’s unrealistic. This is work. Art is work. Creativity is work. And I’ve learned what doesn’t cost you, doesn’t change you.
3) Make the word count be your goal, because it’s emotionless and measurable. You have to use hard data when you are measuring your success. Make those words being on the page your data, not the feeling you get putting them there.
That’s all for today! Keep writing. Tomorrow we head into the final stretch!