1,127 words yesterday and I started class today, with TONS of Arabic homework, so I decided to take a break and go to bed early. I need the sleep.
Yesterday, when I started writing, it was difficult at first because there wasn’t much action, but as soon as the action picked up the writing just flowed. It was beautiful. The scene that I saw in my mind matched the scene I was writing. It’s moments like this that I enjoy writing.
It shows me that if it seems hard to write, it might be a good idea to cut out all the unnecessary stuff and get right to the action. That’s very similar advice, actually, to what I’ve heard in my political science classes. In academia, there’s a real problem with people writing in the passive voice. It can make an article seem more prestigious than it really is, and put the reader to sleep at the same time. In PLSC 200 they are nazis about passive tense, even when it’s actually legit. The result is that your writing is simple and the action is clear. Apply that to fiction, and it helps as well.
Even though I didn’t write anything tonight, I do need to keep the momentum going. I’ve experienced this before, where I’ll have a great story idea and lots of fun writing it out, but then a few days go by without me working on it, which quickly becomes a few weeks, then a few months, and then it gets buried. I may or may not pick it up again, but it’s usually a bit harder than it would have been if I’d have kept the momentum going.
On the other hand, there is a reason why I decided long ago that I would never become a professional fiction writer. That reason is that writing would become a chore if it became my job. I don’t want that. I enjoy writing. It’s creative, expressive, therapeutic sometimes, meditative in others, and sometimes it can even be exciting and invigorating. To keep it that way, I’m reluctant to let writing become the primary focus of my life.
When you’ve got momentum, though, it’s beautiful. That’s why I’m a “binge” writer. I don’t usually force myself to sit down and write (out of fear of turning a recreational activity into a chore), but when I do do it, I get in this sort of trance and I don’t want to get out. Hours become minutes and pages flash by faster than my mind can notice. It’s beautiful. I could spend a whole afternoon doing that, once I’m in the right groove.
I’ll try to wake up a bit early tomorrow and write a bit, as an experiment. Morning writing vs. evening writing. More on that tomorrow.
