Sunday, September 28, 2014

Every day

Do you like spoons? Yes, we all have them piled in the kitchen drawer, or maybe even piled in the sink, waiting to get cleaned of the chocolate frosting we dig into on the rare occasion. Or Spoon! the call to action by the greatest super-hero of last generation: The Tick.

What does any of this have to do with writing? Hang on there floppy pants, I want to introduce you to an artist I follow on Instagram: STIAN KORNTVED RUUD 
As of this writing he is on day 168 of his goal of carving a new spoon every day for a year.  As he finishes each spoon, he posts pics of his work. 

The process has yielded some some amazing results, along with designs that are flawed and awkward. But guess what? That's supposed to happen. You are supposed to make rubbish. A lot of it. Every day dig in and spend some quality time and knock out 500, 750, or 1000 words. Every day write about something that is wonderful, or trivial, or awkward, or bad. Get comfortable with the notion that what you are writing is an important part of the process, not the final product. It is the potter removing the clay from the bowl, the sculptor removing the marble from the figure, the carver removing the shavings from the spoon. You don't write every day because people will love your work. You write every day so that when you re-write the muscles are strong and your vision is clear. And your readers will thank you.

To help keep me on track for writing every day, I use 750words.com. This is a screen shot of September so far:
Yes, I have missed some days. But to be fair, my Nugget arrived ahead of schedule on September 1st. Sometimes writing has to take the backseat.




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