Writing Tent
My hands were cold, so I'm writing this while underneath a blanket. All the way under a blanket, with the screen of my laptop tenting the fabric and creating a bright glow to light my little cave. It's a good 10 degrees warmer in here, so even though Michael just scratched at my roof and essentially said, "What are you doing, weirdo?," I'm going to stand by my work environment choices.
After my poetry spasm the other day, I've been thinking about how one brings about a creative mood. I've always agreed with the thought that creativity is a muscle -- you have to exercise it, or it's harder to use -- but now I'm reminded that you also have to surround yourself with inspiration, as well. You have to get yourself in the mood, if you know what I mean. Heh heh. So basically I have to search out creativity porn.
Ugh, now it's getting too hot in my blanket cave. I made a "window" with my leg. Guys, being a writer is hard.
Let's get the picture of the day over with, shall we? What am I on, hmm...
November 3rd. Finally out of the Bahamas pictures. That means things are about to get pretty boring.
There's Clyde trying to escape me cutting his hair. It didn't work, and he got a haircut anyway.
Back to writing. I've had this quote from Ira Glass pasted in Blogger for awhile now, meaning to say something about it. It's one I've read before, but I came across it again on a Brain Pickings post and thought it was worth talking about there:
Nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish somebody had told this to me — is that all of us who do creative work … we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, OK? It’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean?
A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people at that point, they quit. And the thing I would just like say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be — they knew it fell short, it didn’t have the special thing that we wanted it to have.
And the thing I would say to you is everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase — you gotta know it’s totally normal.
And the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work — do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week, or every month, you know you’re going to finish one story. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions. It takes a while, it’s gonna take you a while — it’s normal to take a while. And you just have to fight your way through that, okay?
What I get from this is that
After my poetry spasm the other day, I've been thinking about how one brings about a creative mood. I've always agreed with the thought that creativity is a muscle -- you have to exercise it, or it's harder to use -- but now I'm reminded that you also have to surround yourself with inspiration, as well. You have to get yourself in the mood, if you know what I mean. Heh heh. So basically I have to search out creativity porn.
Ugh, now it's getting too hot in my blanket cave. I made a "window" with my leg. Guys, being a writer is hard.
Let's get the picture of the day over with, shall we? What am I on, hmm...
November 3rd. Finally out of the Bahamas pictures. That means things are about to get pretty boring.
There's Clyde trying to escape me cutting his hair. It didn't work, and he got a haircut anyway.
Back to writing. I've had this quote from Ira Glass pasted in Blogger for awhile now, meaning to say something about it. It's one I've read before, but I came across it again on a Brain Pickings post and thought it was worth talking about there:
Nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish somebody had told this to me — is that all of us who do creative work … we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, OK? It’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean?
A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people at that point, they quit. And the thing I would just like say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be — they knew it fell short, it didn’t have the special thing that we wanted it to have.
And the thing I would say to you is everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase — you gotta know it’s totally normal.
And the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work — do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week, or every month, you know you’re going to finish one story. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions. It takes a while, it’s gonna take you a while — it’s normal to take a while. And you just have to fight your way through that, okay?
What I get from this is that
- Writing is an endurance exercise
- I need to focus on just becoming a writer -- on adopting the habits of and producing the workload requisite to being -- not becoming a good writer.
- I need to just effing do it already.