There is a huge difference between sitting down to write a blog “today” or “this weekend” or “tonight” and sitting down to write a blog in the next 45 minutes. What is that difference you ask? Well, at the end of 45 minutes, you actually have a finished blog.
Want to make a task impossible? Give someone an endless amount of time to do it in. Right now, my goals as a writer are open-ended. Pretty much, I want To Write. Which has made it just about impossible to get anything of any substance done.
At the beginning of the month, I cracked open my “642 Things to Write About” book for the first time in a long time. The book is full of writing prompts, some simple and others a little more detailed. The goal of the book is to give you a starting point. For a couple months a couple years ago, I set the goal of writing for fifteen minutes each day, using a different prompt from the book for each session.
It was a simple daily exercise. I didn’t even let myself choose the prompt; I just did them in order. Each day, I’d open the book, type the next prompt at the top of a blank page, set the timer, and go. I’ve never written more in less time than when I did those prompts. There was no time to hem and haw, or to write and rewrite everything in my head without putting anything down on paper. I had fifteen minutes, and I used them.
I remembered all of this when I sat down earlier this month and tackled another prompt. I’ve talked endlessly in this blog about all I haven’t written. But here was a story—started, finished, and edited—all in fifteen minutes.
This blog has been giving me trouble lately. I keep beating around the bush, going back and forth on what topic to write about, refusing to stamp anything "Final." So I set a timer for forty-five minutes. And fifteen minutes later, here we are, six paragraphs into a shiny new blog post.
I think writing is about tricks: You keep trying different strategies until you figure out how to trick yourself into actually sitting down and writing. When it comes to creative writing, there are few outside constraints that force you to get things done. Sure, there are the universal motivators of Time and Money. At some point, your bills are due, and you better have something to pay them with. But beyond that, it’s on you.
Now, as your career progresses (if it progresses), constraints do start to form. Television and comic book writers have pretty regular deadlines that exist beyond the confines of their own minds. Actors and artists need scripts, and studios and publishers pay people specifically to make sure you get your shit done. Even novelists who come out with a book every few years have deadlines.
But when you’re just starting out, nobody’s waiting on pages from you. Didn’t write anything? Nobody cares. So it’s up to you to figure out how to get yourself to start, and even more importantly, how you get yourself to finish.
For me, setting a timer helps with both of those things. Hitting “Start” is my cue to, well, start. And more importantly, setting a time limit changes my mindset. I’m not just setting out To Write, I’m setting out To Finish Something. There’s a huge difference there, one worthy of a blog post in and of itself.
Sometimes I finish before the timer is up. And other times, I simply need more time. But when I’ve been writing consistently throughout my allotted time--be it fifteen minutes or forty-five--and I’m not done, I have no problem giving myself more time.
I just plug in the number of minutes I think I’ll need, hit start, and race for the last line.