Writers as Machines

When I first thought about writing, in my 20s, I could touch type quite fast and reckoned typing 1000 words in an hour was achievable.  Then work a 9-5 day, with a hour off for lunch, and another hour for breaks in the morning and afternoon.  That was 6 hours = 6,000 words per day.  5 days a week = 30,000 words.  There!  A 90,000 word novel in 3 weeks flat.  What was wrong with that?

Nothing, except it didn't work.  

Writers are not machines and there is more to writing than just typing words on a page. I have a lazy streak and sometimes I have to make myself write (I always enjoy it once I get going, just getting going can be a trial at times).  Other times,  the well of creativity has run dry. When my father died, I didn't write for three months, but I've had other fallow patches - usually after a big burst of creativity.  

You have to judge for yourself if you're being lazy, or just need a bit of creative down time.  Even machines need fuel to run.    

What I've Learned From Teaching

And after my grumpiness earlier in the week about a new term starting, I'm off this morning to teach the first session this term of my Friday class, the longest teaching job I've had - over ten years, who'd have thought it? Ever Friday morning (and afternoon, because the waiting list for the morning led a duplicate class in the afternoon) in term time for over ten years I've come up with a new class idea for thirty odd students to react to.

That's a lot of classes. A lot of ideas because I rarely duplicate a class unless asked to (or once because I came across a scribbled class note to myself and thought "that's a good idea, I'll use that in class", completely forgetting that I already had) and a lot of people putting their heads down and reacting to my commands to write something impossible.

And they do. I set these impossible tasks, they pull faces and then write something in response. They're so obedient! I hardly ever get a refusal, their creativity hitting a blank. There may be moans and groans, but they do it.

Usually when I call time they're less obedient. The pens scribble on. I call time again, and reluctantly people leave the world of their writing and come back to the class.

So, what do we learn?

Firstly, it doesn't take long to get sucked into writing. You just have to get started and it pulls you in.

Secondly, if you HAVE to - a new class looming means a new idea must be found, a teacher demands you write something - you will write.

We've been proving that every Friday for over ten years. We'll prove it again today. It's true for you too. Sit down, start writing, and in a few minutes it will come.

Creativity and Colds

I have been suffering over this last week with a cold. I don't think it was bad enough to be elevated to the lofty world of flu, let alone swine flu, but it has been bad enough for me to only want to lie down in a quiet room with the curtains drawn. All my plans for the start of the New Year have disappeared along with my concentration span. Reading more than a couple of pages at a time has been impossible, writing out of the question. Even writing this blog is a wobbly experience. There it is. I'm human. I get colds.

I'm human, not a machine. So why do I expect myself to be able to churn out X thousand words a day, regardless of what else is going on in my life? I'm a big fan of 'a little and often' and it's true that the more you write the more it becomes a habit, like brushing your teeth, but sometimes even writing a little is impossible. For every Stephen King, with his 2000 words a day, every day, there's a Jane Austen, who was miserable during the years she lived in Bath and stopped writing, only restarting when she moved to Chawton.

Creativity can be stimulated by stress and adverse conditions, but it can also dry up. As writers we have to learn to recognise when our personal creativity is lying fallow and not beat ourselves up because we're not writing. Writing is not a competative sport. If you finished that short story, then you finished it. No reader is going to care whether you took two days, two weeks or two years to write it. All that matters is that the work is good. Now, pass me the paracetemol...