I’m not new to writing. I’ve attended many creative writing courses (including a few at Moniack Mhor Writers Centre, here in the Scottish Highlands) and I was fortunate enough to cofound a few writing groups in the past 10 or more years (Novel Writers and the Highland Literary Salon — which has now become Highland Lit). I met some amazing people too.
In my day-job, as well as being a software developer, I’m also the Tech Manager for a company called MIME Technologies Ltd in Inverness. My job involves a fair amount of writing specifications and reports, so it’s fair to say that I’m no stranger to a keyboard. However, as I’m “unpublished”, I would describe me as a “noob” or “wannabe” writer.
About four weeks ago…no, more like six…well, eight…eight weeks ago, I had an idea for a “short” book (don’t ask me what I mean/meant by “short”, but let’s just say I had no expectations of anything novel-length).
Being a fairly organised, project-managery-type person, I knew that I had to plan the whole thing as I saw it at that point.
So, I took to Asana (my current favourite project planning system — I’ve yet to find one which does 100% of the things I want/need, and I’ve tried over 30 — but this is close), rattled up a few Kanban boards and blatted down some broad strokes for section headings. Enthused by my progress so far, it was time to get cracking!
Boom! To my surprise — and because it never works this way with me — over the course of the next three hours or so, out poured nearly 10,000 words of inspiring and grammatical beauty…
…OK, OK…so it was actually 10,000 words of a brain-dump and after my first re-read, only around 3,000 of these were OK.
Very disappointed, I learned my first lesson as a noob writer:
Lesson 1 — “It ain’t all gonna be gold”
It wasn’t great at all…I was repeating myself, there were typos, grammatical issues, questionable suggestions and highly flaky conclusions. Some sentences which could have been 10 words, were actually 30 or more! I also broke my cardinal rule of communication by unnecessarily over-describing the obvious as well as failing to describe concepts which only lived in my head.
I was undeterred…armed with a fresh coffee and my newly discovered equation for success (since around 3,000 words of my 10,000 were ‘OK’, it surely follows that 30% of everything I write must be OK?!?!?), I continued the word-assault on my otherwise blameless canvas of a screen.
I think I managed around 600 additional words before frustration combined with excessive heat from the delete key, brought me to a full-stop (pun intended).
Lesson 2 — Know when to take a break!
I didn’t know that during my mammoth writing sesh, I’d ignored a little known “rhythm” of human physiology.
In brief, we operate on daily “cycles” or “rhythms”. You’ll have heard of some of these:
Circardian Rhythm — Cycle of around 24 hours which governs our sleep/wakefulness.
Diurnal Rhythm — Opposite of “Nocturnal” and means we are more active during daylight hours.
You may not have heard of these:
Infradian Rhythm — Cycles less frequent than every 24 hours (e.g. menstruation, breeding, migration, hibernation, tidal and seasonal rhythms).
Ultradian Rhythm — Cycles more frequent than every 24 hours and longer than an hour, occurring many times per day (e.g. blood circulation, heart rate, bowel activity and appetite).
The rhythm I was unaware of, is the Ultradian Rhythm. In brief, this says that from the moment we wake, we follow a “cycle” of around 90 minutes of high productivity, followed by approximately 20 minutes of reduced capability. See this graph:
Breaking it down: for every 90 minutes we work, we should follow it with 20 minutes of a“break”. This break allows us to recharge and prepare for the next 90 minutes of high productivity.
Interestingly, this is a cycle and, regardless of whether we take that break or not, once we pass the 20 minute “low”, our productivity will indeed start to improve again. However, the next “high” on this productivity cycle will not be as good as either the first when we wake or that after a “break”.
The compound effect of not taking these breaks will not only leave us feeling completely shit and in a place from which no amount of chocolate or coffee can extract us, but can have an increasingly detrimental effect on things like immunity, blood pressure, insulin response and inflammation markers, to name but a few.
Because I hadn’t taken a break in so long, my brain was fogged and there was little chance that anything being written would be of any worth. I might as well have been stacking playing cards whilst fighting sleep.
Along with knowing when to break, it’s also important to figure out the time of the day that’s best for us to write. I’m an early-bird and do the majority of my writing in the hours between 0530 and 0900. You might be a night-owl and write late into the evening. Whatever your best time is, set it aside and use it solely to get your writing done. Establishing a routine for writing, will help you to make faster progress. It doesn’t have to be every day (unless you have a timescale which dictates this), but obviously the more days you can dedicate to writing, the faster you’ll make progress.
Lesson 3 — Don’t re-read what you’ve written; just get it all down!
OK, so I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I’d love to think that every sentence I write is a polished gem, requiring no revisit or editing. That’s complete tosh, certainly for me!
You may not agree with just getting everything out of your head and onto the screen/paper. I’m sure there are lots of authors out there who don’t do it this way and believe that, if they spend the time perfecting everything as they go along, they’ll end having to do less editing later. I don’t believe that this is true, for a few reasons:
- You’ll spend more time writing, editing, rewriting and rewriting the same few sentences over and over until you’re happy — that’s time you possibly don’t have (especially if you’re working to a deadline).
- If you haven’t written your entire text, how can you know that every sentence is correct and, more importantly, in context? You might find better (often, shorter) ways to express things. You may also discover that the sentences you’ve crafted to death are actually no longer necessary because of some explanation later in your text.
- If you’re writing a book, books usually (no, I’m going to go with “always”) books ALWAYS change in terms of content and direction throughout the writing process (and even more when it comes to editing). So, there’s a good chance that the sentences you’ve spent so much time seducing into existence, could end up being cut from the final text. What a complete waste of your time that would then have been!
The biggest reason I have to get everything out of my head (no matter how disjointed, irrelevant or crap it is), is because not doing so actually creates blocks that prevent me from getting to the material I really want to write. It’s almost like the good, relevant stuff is “hiding” behind these blocks.
So, whatever you do, especially if you find yourself struggling to keep on subject; just blat everything down that comes into your head. I find that the fog of irrelevance soon clears and I’m back on subject.
TIP: After you’ve blatted everything down and the “fog” has cleared, take a backup of what you’ve just written and store it somewhere separate from this piece of writing. The reason for this is, I found (by accident) that this brain-dump nearly always had other subject material mixed up in it and that was helpful for future writing. This will also be useful for Lesson 7, later.
The beauty of learning this lesson the hard way, brought me onto lesson 4:
Lesson 4 — Plan, plan and plan some more
One of my problems (and probably that of many writers or others trying to write) is what I call “runaway mind”.
I start writing about something and then find myself wandering off topic as more and more things occur to me whilst I write. I end up writing hundreds of words about many topics where maybe 30 words on the topic at hand would have done.
In terms of just getting stuff written down, as we’ve already said, there’s nothing wrong with this and it IS the thing to do. However, it’s better if you can keep to the subject at hand.
So, what I tend to do now is pre-plan what I’m going to write about. Even for something as short as this blog post, I have a “to-do” list of headings (or topics) with tickboxes (so I can mark off what’s been covered). You can use whatever you like for this (Google Keep, Apple Notes, etc.); I use Apple Notes here, but something with tickboxes is handy:
That way, I can check back after I’ve typed a few sentences to ensure that I’ve properly covered the topic concerned.
This makes sense because the easiest way with any planning is to chop tasks up into small, manageable and distinct chunks.
Make the chunks small enough so that each one represents a single subject, topic or component that you can easily understand and know what to do with.
For example, consider the following tasks to accomplish the changing of oil in a vehicle. If I wrote the tasks thus:
- Let engine cool for at least an hour
- Drain old engine oil
- Remove old oil filter
- Discard old oil filter
- Charge new oil filter with oil
- Fit new oil filter gasket
- Coat gasket in thin film of new oil
- Install new oil filter
- Check vehicle manual for recommended engine oil fill amount
- Fill engine with two-thirds of this amount of new oil
- Check oil level on dipstick confirms two-thirds full
- Add just under remaining third of recommended oil fill amount
- Double-check oil level on dipstick confirms just under “full”
- Start engine and check for oil leaks
In terms of planning for me, this is too chopped-up and could be replaced with:
- Replace engine oil and filter
That level of simplicity would be fine for me because it describes a task which I know how to accomplish and/or expand upon.
However (and this is a topic for a future post on project/task/time management), do whatever feels right and works for the situation. Do the basics and then start working through them. It’ll very quickly become clear if your plan isn’t detailed enough, and you can then adapt it (although I’d suggest you avoid making the plan into a book itself).
If you have a word-count “target”, then your plan could be driven by this too. You would have a number of smaller word-count tasks which, when complete, add up to the word-count target.
Say you had 30 days to write 20,000 words; you could break that up into:
Day 1: 900 words
Days 2–29 (inclusive): 650 words
Day 30: 900 words
This example is weighted (I’ll talk about that later) towards it being easier to rattle out words on day 1, but then getting into a steady “flow” on days 2–29, with a final “push” on day 30. If you under or over-achieve on your word target everyday, you can always revise the plan, so that you know where you’re at progress-wise.
Lesson 5 — Set a deadline and work to it
Unless the piece of writing has a timescale for completion, which has been set by someone else (e.g. whomever commissioned it), you’d be surprised at how many people simply start writing (a book or anything else) with no idea as to when they want to have it finished!
It’s always better to have some sort of a deadline to work to. Even if the deadline is of your own making, it means that you’ll have a framework of time to operate within and can therefore set realistic goals to achieve in that timescale.
This can be hard, at first. Try to ensure that any deadline is realistic and achievable, or you run the risk of either continually missing it, or meeting it but burning yourself out in the process.
Base your timescale for each chunk on how long you thing it’ll take and then weight that with the expected difficulty of achieving that chunk of work. So, if you need to write 2,000 words on a subject you know really well, which requires you to do no research, you might decide that’ll take you two to three hours and set your timescale to be 2.5 hours with zero weighting. However, if the subject did require to be researched, you might weight the timescale by adding 50%. This just allows you to create a more realistic and considered plan, when it comes to timescales.
Tip: If you’re good at working to timescales, then why not keep yourself on your toes by making the deadline a little tighter than the timescale suggests and promise yourself a reward for meeting or beating it. Don’t be too competitive with yourself, for this can lead to burnout too!
Ask for help from others, if it will either enrich the quality and depth of your work, or allow you to complete it more quickly, or both! For example, you could enlist someone to help with research (if research is something you’re not good at or don’t like doing or simply don’t have time to do). Don’t forget to set realistic timescales for helpers too and, of course, make sure to account for them in your overall plan.
Lesson 6— Some ways to deal with writers block
The gist of this, is that should you find yourself struggling to write for the project you’re supposed to be working on, you can try the following:
- Take a break — even if it’s not specifically the time for a break, ultradian-rhythm-wise. Go and load (or unload) the dishwasher, fold the laundry, have a shower, make some toast…whatever. The goal is to get away from your work area and shift your focus to doing something totally different.
- Write something else — Even just write a stream of your consciousness. As I said earlier, I found that when I couldn’t focus on one thing, that multiple ideas were embedded in the same stream. So, if you just write what’s on your mind (even if it’s describing a problem in your life or something like that), it can provide some clearance and allow the rest of the stuff to flow. Treat the page/screen like you’re talking to your best friend, and you haven’t seen/spoken with them in ages.
- Meditate — The basics are; sit quietly somewhere, close your eyes, take some deep breaths and relax. Begin breathing slowly and as you do, count your breaths in and out (in your head; not out loud) to a maximum of 10 and then start again from one. Your mind will wander and thoughts will come and go, but that’s OK; acknowledge the wandering of thoughts and return your focus to counting. Do this for as long as you feel you need/want to.
- Write the end — If you’re stuggling with a plot-point, or you can’t even get going; write the end. Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, punctuation, anything like that. Just write the end of your project as if you’re already there. Enjoy the feeling that gives you, that you’ve completed it. Afterwards, have a break, give yourself a reward (chocolate biscuit or something) and bask in that (albeit short-lived) glow of being “done”. Then, go back to where you were stuck and crack on from there.
We’re all different when it comes to what constitutes writers block and what we can and will do about it. It might seem logical that the longer you’ve been a writer, the more you’ve seen this/been in this position and therefore, you should be better placed to deal with it. It isn’t always the case, though. Someone who has repeatedly failed to deal with it successfully, may feel “trapped” by writers block. Others who’ve just experienced it for the first time, might just make a cup of coffee and come back to their desk to find the block has gone.
Lesson 7— Have a “side” or “escape” project
Ah, my favourite safety net and exactly what this blog post is!
We all experience times when the project we’re working on, just doesn’t twang the creative strings of our brains anymore. It could be that we’re just tired or have hit a dead-end, sat there; staring at a screen/page and not coming up with anything worthwhile (which can be SO frustrating and downright off-putting). Or, worse still, SEEING what you want to write, floating around inside your head, but being unable to coax it into the real world!
This is what is often called “Writers Block”, which I talked about in lesson 6.
After checking that it’s not “break time” (see Lesson 2, earlier…) and dealing with it if it is, I found that I was much more likely to get back on track with my writing, if I diverted my attention to something else. It’s well known that if you place the focus of your conscious mind on something other than the issue at hand, your subconscious mind will begin the process of coming up with solutions to this issue, which sometimes come to you in “aha!” moments.
For me, it was in the midst of early-bird duty whilst writing a book about working from home. I’d had two consecutive nights where I didn’t sleep particularly well and that made me feel quite jaded to the point of not being able to focus properly on that project. So, I decided to push it aside for a few mornings in favour of doing something different. What did I do? I ended up getting this post written!
I’ve found, especially since doing more writing during lockdown (I am one of those people who were told to shield), that I have more and more topics coming into my mind (some of which will make great blog posts — others of them will even be awesome books).
During lockdown, owing to the fact that I needed to get fitter and lose weight, I decided to take up daily walking. We live on a farm in the middle of nowhere, so I wouldn’t see another person for miles and/or be breaking social distancing or shielding “rules”.
Whilst doing my 2 mile walk each day, and having plenty of thinking time, I decided to dictate some notes about a book I’ve been writing in my head for decades. I’d have my phone’s audio recorder running to capture it all. However, a strange thing (well, strange to me, as I’d never experienced this before) happened; I found that whilst I was trying to dictate this book, I’d come across a phrase or word which sparked a thought about another subject. I’d just have to break what I was talking about in order to get this new thought recorded. This is much like lesson 3 earlier, and I guess I had to let my brain just “get it all down” (or, get it all “said”, in this case).
So, that all being said, meant that I had plenty of “side” material, which wasn’t the project I’d been working on (and struggling with) and was something I could easily switch to when “writers block” set in.
At the end of the day, I’m thoroughly enjoying the process of writing again. My mind is awash with ideas and I’m loving that process of being creative. I hope the lessons I’ve learned and outlined above, are of some assistance to you in your writing endeavours.
