Yesterday was day 2 of my new writing program to help me get back into the habit of writing. And yes this time I did write. I wrote for 30 minutes. This may not seem like a lot of time. Let me just say it seemed to last a lifetime.
Being out of the habit of writing I struggled to get anything down on paper. In fact, I hated everything that I wrote, but I still did it. I had to force myself to stay in my chair with my fingers on the keyboard. I won’t lie I was very tempted to quit and do something else. But I made a promise to myself to not quit.
If you are just starting out just write whatever comes to your mind. You will have plenty of time to go back and edit. Turn off your inner critic. I know that’s hard for some of us, but it needs to be done. Just write and discover your story.
My story is written, well sort of. I’m currently editing the book. Unfortunately the beginning of my story is terribly slow paced. So for the 30 minutes I wrote a new beginning, then stopped, wrote another new beginning, stop again, and kept this process going the whole time.
While what I wrote was horrible, my mind is now in a better place to come up with something better. Sometimes you have to get the garbage out onto paper before you can get the good stuff out.
Today, day 3, was the same as day 1, do nothing. Why? The brain is a muscle and needs time to rest. I’m allowing my brain relax and not get over taxed. If I kept forcing myself to write my brain would eventually shut down and I would be back to square one. This method is working; I’ve had more ideas on where the story should start than I have in a long time.
I’m off to a good start. Three days in and looking forward to the fourth.