The world as it should be

“Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.” — Yoda

At the risk of channeling Yoda, I have been chafing a bit lately whenever I or anyone else says something like, I’m trying to write a ___________ (fill in the blank). It could be a tweet to a novel. It occurred to me that “trying to write” is the wrong attitude.

Writing is writing. You are either writing or you are not writing. You can’t try to write.

I am no longer going to say I am trying to write this or that, or even that I am “working” on writing whatever. I am going to, as Yoda advises, do or not do. I am a writer. I am going to write. Not talk about writing, not “try” to write. Not even write a blog post about writing. I need to go. Write.

They’re fancy talkers about themselves, writers. If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don’t listen to writers talk about writing or themselves.
Lillian Hellman

As a writer and freelance editor and designer, one thing I am very good at is creative work avoidance behaviors. From checking my e-mail to hitting the kitchen for a snack to re-arranging my sock drawer, I’ve done them all. At least twice.

That’s one reason I looked for a Muse. I needed someone to be my border collie and keep my worktime peregrinations to a minimum.  More about the Muse’s latest in another post.

Anyway, to be successful at being a writer, here are three things you must do. Now.

1. STOP READING THIS BLOG POST AND WRITE. You are probably procrastinating, aren’t you? I bet you have been sitting there, chin on one hand, mouse in the other, clicking your way through link after link while the razor-sharp second hand slices away what’s left of your day.

WRITE.

2. PLAN FOR YOUR WRITING TOMORROW. Write down ideas before they slip away. If you have an iPhone, use the Notes or Voice Memo. Better yet, use a concept map. Draw a circle in the center of a piece of paper (or use free software, like CMap Tools) and put down your one good idea you have that is rattling around your mind like a BB in an empty tuna fish can. Then draw five circles around it and write down five related ideas, two of which must be opposites. Then draw two lines off each circle and put two more ideas based on that circle. One must be a positive connection to the circle idea and one a negative, or anti-, idea.

There. Now, even if some of them are dry holes,  you have certainly enough ideas about what to write tomorrow, don’t you? Now get back to work and WRITE.

3. THINK OF 3 PEOPLE you can connect with by end of day tomorrow who can help your writing or consulting by brainstorming with you about story ideas, potential clients, or markets and marketing ideas. Get out their phone numbers NOW and write them down on a real or virtual Post-It and put it on your monitor or desktop. Call each before noon tomorrow. Ask each for the name and contact info of one other person who would be valuable for you to network with. DO IT.

Then get back to writing.

You’re welcome.

And I hate painting. Well, actually it’s not so much the painting, it’s all the prep work. Scraping, sanding, spackling, repairing, ACK!

It’s the same with writing, at least non-fiction. With fiction, you don’t need to worry so much about facts, though internal consistency is important once you get the story going. You just more or less give birth to the characters and let them go. They will create their own facts.

But with non-fiction, there’s fact-gathering (which I always overdo), interviewing, more fact-gathering and checking, more interviewing, collating of notes, rough drafts, editing and yada yada yada.

Depending on the subject, you may even have to re-check facts you have already checked (sound like fun?). For instance, I did a piece on the fire ant a few years ago. The story took a long time to come together, and while I was working on it, new facts came out on the spread of the ant and about a fly that was being used to try to contain the growth of ant colonies. One never knows when the facts will change.

Still, fiction scares me. So much power, so much responsibility. Despite the work, I still think I prefer non-fiction. Too timid for fiction for now.

I have developed this bad habit — especially for someone who wants to become a full-time freelance writer — of endlessly fiddling with a paragraph instead of moving through the story.

It has become an obsession, trying to make the paragraph perfect instead of actually keeping the words flowing through my mind and out my fingers. There’s always time to go back and fix, polish. When the muse whacks you upside the head, you need to go with it.

Lately, however, I shush the Muse and agonize over the placement of that comma. Then I review my Tweets, check my-email, see if I have made a dime on an AdSense click, and get a drink of water from the kitchen.

By the time I get back to the keyboard, the Muse is asleep on the couch and I can’t recall where I was going with the story. Then I hit the couch, too. Maybe the Muse will rub my temples.