Writers Unbound

Let’s review.

1> a mission, vision, goal, purpose
2> a means (your type of writing)
3> a method (how you get your means on paper)
4> an experience, voice, perspective, history
5> an inflowing of ideas, inspiration, and information

Yesterday we talked about Mission and Means. Today we’ll examine Method, Experience, and that last one with all the i alliteration.

A Method - how you get writing into your life

You know why you’re writing (mission).
You know what you’re writing (means).
Now you must answer this question: How will you do it? What steps must you take to produce some kind of writing every day? “There is no perfect time to write,” says Barbar Kinslover, author of The Poisonwood Bible, “There is only now.”

Somehow we must fit the now for writing into our busy days, our other work, our family obligations, our house cleaning, our dinnertime, our vacations and our big projects. I don’t have a foolproof method to give you. Sorry. Everybody’s life is different, so every writer must find a method that works in the context of that life. The point here is to remind you that you must have one. If you don’t plan for writing, if you don’t sit down and map out a way to make it part of your life, then it won’t be part of your life.

Whether you are working at home, moonlighting on your great American novel, or writing poetry in between term papers, fitting it in somewhere every day is essential to keeping yourself alive as a writer. If you’ve just been stuffing your time to write into the edges of your day (where it’s liable to slide off into oblivion), start scheduling a specific time. Maybe you do write, all day, every day, but it’s time for your novel, your collection of short stories, your memoir that you can’t seem to find. Can you eliminate an article or two from your daily quota and take half an hour to work on a bigger project? Even a little bit a day become a big bit after many days.

Your Experience - the voice, history, and perspective that permeate your work

This particular tool is called voice most often in writing workshops and How to Write Fiction instructional books. It’s more than that, though. The sum of who you are comes forth in what you write, even if you’re copy writing for a toothpaste company. Who you are. It’s why you say “gleam” instead of “shine,” why you have a thing for one-liners so subtle half your audience won’t get them, why you need a clear picture of each character’s hair.

This tool is the easiest, in a way, because it’s already there. Your past, your experience, your family, your education, your accent - all that undeniable baggage. Using the tool effectively is where we tend to get lazy. Don’t discount where you come from as too boring to affect your stories. Want a secret for effective writing? People are fascinated by other people. We like stories about people, about their boring lives and boring days and boring conversations coated over their intriguing thoughts and dreams and worlds within. We like the juxtaposition of someone else’s normal life laid out next to our own.

Use your story. Acknowledge your history. Dig from your past and consciously include who you are in your stories. You don’t have to write a tell-all childhood confession or affect a regional accent. Just let who you honestly are influence your style without fear. You’re real, and that’s what people want to read about. Something real. Someone real.

Inflowing of Ideas, Inspiration, and Information

I know I’ve already talked about how important reading is to a writer, and it is. We need fresh food, not to regurgitate, but to fuel ourselves so we can produce something new and worthwhile.

Books are essential, lots of books, lots of different kinds of books. Newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals are fuel. Online reading and blogs provide fuel.

Conversations with interesting people, intelligent people, people just like you, people totally different than you: these are necessary. Talking is writing on air, with no draft to edit and no record of how many adverbs you used. Talk to people everywhere you go. Pretend you’re an extrovert sometimes, even if you’re not.

New experiences and places and activities provide fresh fuel as well. Jump out of your routine sometimes. Start being observant. Notice colors in the atmosphere. What’s the weather like? How do your shoes fit? Why is that woman staring at the wall? How is it that so many people can’t parallel park? What brings people to this farmer’s market early on a weekend morning? Ask questions. Examining them will turn into an essay, an article, a book. You might even end up with a few answers.

The old, the mundane, the repetitive motions of your day: these are fuel, too, if you can force your mind to go new places even as you walk the rut. Every day is different, if you can be thoughtful enough about it. Ask questions about what you’re doing and why. Learn more about your own life. And most of all:

Write.

That’s the last tool of the mercenary writer. It’s you, sitting at the computer while the laundry waits on the bed. It’s you, jotting down an idea while you’re in the carpool line. It’s you, taking a notebook along on a run for groceries. It’s you, being who you are, not letting the daily stuff of life be an obstacle but letting it be what carries you on.
Credits:
Cartoon Knight attacking the PC from CartoonStock.com.
Quotations source: Writing.com.