Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Writing is re-writing

Just a brief topic today on writing every day. 



Yes, you are supposed to.  Seriously. 

That's just crazy, I can hear you say. Stop complaining. You're the one going around to all your friends tell them you are a writer. So write, damn it.

But what's the best way? What do I write about? What if it's bad?

Let's take this in reverse order:

It will be bad. Trust me. Anything your write down as a first draft will be crap. I didn't say that. Hemingway did. If you don't like that, go complain to him. I don't want to hear it.

What do you write about? I don't care. I'm not going to be subjected to the painful verses you slap down on paper. Write about your cat, your girlfriend, your wife, or your wife finding out about your girlfriend. Just write.

What's the best way? I have no idea. However, I do have a way that works for me that I am happy to share with you. Ready?

Every evening, before bed, I write between 2 and 3 pages in small notebook. Horribly jotted down sentences of trite conversations, ideas, plots, characters. The handwriting is so bad I can't read half of it the next day.  But you know what? That's OK!  What happens is that I sleep on what I wrote and the next day at lunch I log into my 750words.com, notebook at the ready, and start typing.

Again, most of the stuff I write with a pen I can't even read, but I have an idea and most of the time I can re-write something better, more fluid or present.

What does this give me? 750 words a day. 


I wager that is about 800 words a day more than what you have.

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