Writing Every Day
At the 2003 Screenwriting Expo, I went to a seminar by personal coach David Brownsetin. His presentation about life balance for writers was a welcome break from topics like "Five Adjectives That Will Make Your Script Edgy" and "Ten Query Letter Techniques To Wow Them With Your Inadequate Script (Since Having a Good Script Isn't Very Important)."
David e-mails a newsletter from time to time. Just after New Years he challenged recipients to write every day for 30 days. Even five minutes would count; the goal was to connect with the writing every day.
This ó I'm here to tell you ó is harder than it sounds. How, for example, does one fit in writing on the day of watching all three extended editions of The Lord of the Rings? And upon missing a day, the 30-day count must begin again. To date, my best stretch has been 22 days (not currently ongoing).
One benefit to connecting to a given piece of work every single day is that you don't waste time at the start of work finding your place. This is a good thing, but not Life Altering. The larger benefit is this: The piece you're working on remains at the front of your mind every day in a way it doesn't after a hiatus of two days, or three, or a week. "Front of mind" is especially crucial to projects you don't get a lot of time to work on. Because when a project is front of mind, you can devote commuting time, time standing in lines, time between lunch-time poker hands working out story issues and problems in preparation of the next session of hands-to-keyboard. When you don't connect every day, those issues start running silent and deep in the recesses of your gray matter and you spend valuable writing time staring into space and thinking.
The 30-day challenge is not without downsides; the major drawback is that you can't take a damn day off without having to start the count over. And sometimes one simply needs a break.
So, though I have not successfully done it myself, I challenge you, jefftidball.com reader, to write without a break for 30 days. By which I mean, of course, to write on each of 30 consecutive days.
Comments
Hmm. Interesting challenge and one that I may very well take up the gauntlet of. But maybe not until I'm back from India....
I'll take up this challenge. It's essentially what NaNoWriMo is all about, and I managed 20-odd days there. I like this challenge, and I love/hate the idea that you have to reset the count for days you miss.
I'll start my count on March 1. Thanks for the info, Jeff.
You're on. Ready...begin!
I should myself take up a variant of the challenge, and try to code every day for 30 days straight. It seems like the same ideas apply in both situations.. I know it's a lot easier to write code for a project when it's in the front of my mind, so to speak. Take a few days off and it's a lot harder to get back into a project because you forget what's going on, where you were at, what's been done and what still needs to be done, what problems you have yet to figure out, and all of that kind of thing. On top of that, it's just plain morale-boosting to be into a project and really getting things done. It's real tough to get back into it like that once you stop for a while.
I even have the perfect project going on right now to apply this to.. so I guess I'll go get started!
I'd love to take up the challenge...just need something to write about. Hmm, actually, there's a couple of projects I've got on my plate that I could handle writing 30 days worth of consistently. Fun!
On a side note, I saw in the news that 30 people in 11 homes in Glendale had to be evacuated on Monday due to landslides. You, Stacey, and Abbey ok? *cringes at all the wild weather going on*
Never fear, all are well in the Tidball house, for values of well including physical health, but not including values of well that increase commute time drastically.