Mastery, Chemistry, Discipline, Community - today Discipline

Discipline. Not much inspiration in that word.

Yet, if we are serious about the art and craft and heart and spirit of writing, consistent creative effort and diligent hair-tearing reworking is part of the deal.

Now, it’s true, we do encounter writers who report being able to run, pretty much, with their first draft. Mavis Gallant, a fine and prominent author indeed, often wrote her first and final draft in one sitting. Good luck locating another example.

It probably isn’t you.

The rest of us, inspired or not inspired, need to write regularly.

Writer’s block in the creative process? Use the internet, or your friends, or the back of a cereal box for writing prompts. Stare out the window. Go for a walk. Do whatever is both healthy and helpful for you.

Write regularly.

Soul crushing frustration in the editing and polishing process? Well, the childlike quality of the writer’s process is usually in inverse proportion to the number on the draft. Sorry. But you’ll feel better when you reach the final version. Usually.

Write regularly.

Here are some potential disciplined effort measures. Select one or two of these for yourself. Or create your own.

• No less than 300 words a day, five days out of seven. (Poets pick a number.)
• Self-imposed deadlines
• Word count each sitting
• Number of stories, novels, poems, different forms tackled
• Number of pages produced each day / week
• Number of pages edited / revised each day / week
• Number of hours spent writing / revising each day / week
• Number of words generated each day / week
• Percentage of writing time that is mostly joyful

If we can’t build our mansion today, let us build a birdhouse.

Mastery, Chemistry, Discipline, Community - today goodbye to Productivity

In writing, as in everything else, it is easier to know that "something" feels wrong, or flawed, or misstated than to know what that "something" could be. 

Is it worth any effort to revise it? Or should you just throw out the whole kit and kaboodle? Make a few changes around the edges? Leave it as it is, and hope no one notices? Or, rework it all? 

Will anyone care, or even notice, except you? And, if only you care, is that enough reason to make an effort? If so, how much effort and how many hours is the overhaul worth?

My answer, in the case of our Four Factors of Success in Writing, was to change "Productivity" to "Discipline".

If you have not already fallen asleep, you can read the short version of how that came about. 

First, I was, finally able to internalize that success in writing is, if you'll pardon the adverbs, entirely and emphatically different than success in publishing. Ask Emily Dickinson.

Second, I came to realize that my confusion resulted in part from latching onto external signals. Name a successful writer? Why, J K Rowling. She makes gazillions. 

Third, among groups of writers, the most animated -- and endless --  discussions are more often about how and where to get published; and less extensively about the writing itself. Not always, and not in every setting, but often. 

Even students in writing workshops often confuse the kind-of sort-of wanting to write well with the really-really wanting to be published.

Nothing the matter with getting published as a number one priority. I'd like to be on all the bestseller lists too. 

But, Getting Published would be a separate blog.

Someday,