When I was younger there was a hot new book called The Artist’s Way. I never finished it, I don’t even know if I would recommend it, but one of the practices it recommends is morning pages, and morning pages helped me.
What you do is you get a pen and a notebook, and write three pages every morning. If you miss a morning, wait til next morning and write three pages. It doesn’t have to be good or even sensical. A lot of my early morning pages were line after line of “I don’t want to do this, this is bullshit, I’m just kiiiiiiiilllllllling trees and wasting space this is dumb”. Eventually I got bored of writing that stuff and started writing other things, but it took a long time.
The trick is you gotta do it every day, even on days you don’t want to. No one but you can make you write so if you don’t do it, you won’t do it.
I’m a professional writer and this is the way. You’ve just got to force yourself to write. Even if it’s nonsense. Even if you don’t want to. Especially if you don’t want to.
People ask what the difference is between a professional writer and an amateur. Some might say it’s getting paid, but that’s not true - plenty of professional writers don’t get paid. The difference is discipline. When you’re a professional writer you need to be able to turn it on every single day, even when there’s not an ounce of inspiration in your body.
When I was younger there was a hot new book called The Artist’s Way. I never finished it, I don’t even know if I would recommend it, but one of the practices it recommends is morning pages, and morning pages helped me.
What you do is you get a pen and a notebook, and write three pages every morning. If you miss a morning, wait til next morning and write three pages. It doesn’t have to be good or even sensical. A lot of my early morning pages were line after line of “I don’t want to do this, this is bullshit, I’m just kiiiiiiiilllllllling trees and wasting space this is dumb”. Eventually I got bored of writing that stuff and started writing other things, but it took a long time.
The trick is you gotta do it every day, even on days you don’t want to. No one but you can make you write so if you don’t do it, you won’t do it.
I’m a professional writer and this is the way. You’ve just got to force yourself to write. Even if it’s nonsense. Even if you don’t want to. Especially if you don’t want to.
People ask what the difference is between a professional writer and an amateur. Some might say it’s getting paid, but that’s not true - plenty of professional writers don’t get paid. The difference is discipline. When you’re a professional writer you need to be able to turn it on every single day, even when there’s not an ounce of inspiration in your body.