Thank you for tagging me, Peter Vogt!
My contribution: Construct your own writing system, and then trust your system.
It happens to all of us. A nugget of a writing idea emerges like a thought bubble hovering over our beds at 3 a.m., or the treadmill, or the shower. Or materializes like a hologram on a journal page. Our brains join the party, and promptly hurl dodgeballs of angst at us: What if it’s a dumb idea?! What if the project is too big?! How will I ever get the work done?! What if no one reads the finished product?!
Channeling two of my favorite authors on the creative process, Twyla Tharp and Steven Pressfield, let’s remind ourselves:
- we know how to do the work
- we’ve done the work before
- we can do it again.
I try to approach each writing project like this:
- allow myself to get excited about creating new art, even if it ends up being the wildest, dumbest, most pointless project ever commenced since the dawn of time
- set up a writing system: a realistic daily goal, whether that’s in minutes, hours, words, or pages (for me, it’s two hours maximum or I get a migraine)
- treat myself like a writer: carve out a quiet physical space, and protect my scheduled writing time (no emails, phone calls, social media, nothing)
- do the daily work
I write the first draft with abandon (no editing). As long as I do my two hours, I let go of judgment about quality or quantity.
When I start worrying about what people will think, I remind myself:
- “It’s your story, your memory, your perspective”
- “Just one: if you reach one person with your words, you’ve done your job, and that person can even be you”
- “Trust your system, and keep going”
Let’s create our own writing systems. Let’s trust our systems. Let’s let the words accumulate.
Tagging Cathlyn Melvin!
