The best way to start writing again is to start writing again.
It seems obvious because it is. It’s accurate, there’s no real room for argument. Stephen King doesn’t think about writing books, he writes books. James Patterson doesn’t think about writing books, he…well, actually, Patterson may just think about writing books and BOOF, a book appears. I’m not sure how else to explain the sagging shelves in bookstores loaded down with the thousands of novels he has put out.
But for most of those who write, the process is a matter of sitting down (or standing up if you have one of those zany standing desks, or even walking around if you use the even zanier approach of writing via dictation device) and doing it. You do it regularly, you make it a habit, you slowly improve and the process continues until Oprah declares your book the next selection in her book club and you sell a boatload of copies and revel in your brief moment of fame and fortune.
But it all starts with that first step.
Which I am not taking this week (writing on the blog doesn’t count, I’m talking about writing fiction here and as much as I like to stretch the truth in the name of entertaining, this blog is mostly about actual events and things, not ones I have concocted).
Instead, I am beginning with a series of small goals–laying the groundwork, easing into things, making excuses. Well, hopefully not the latter.
The first goal, to be done before the end of the week, is to go through the many scattered folders I have filled with many versions of stories, in various states of completion, and condense them all down into as few folders as possible. At the same time I will relegate older versions of stories, alternate version and anything that doesn’t qualify as done or an active work in progress to a single folder that will be backed up and then lovingly pushed aside.
I’ve wanted to do this sort of organization for awhile and my hope is that the process will help clear out some mental space and allow me to get a better sense of what I have that’s worth keeping while hopefully providing inspiration for what is yet to come. If it doesn’t work, I’ll just go back to reading Marmaduke* and give up on writing permanently.
* see, it’s funny because he’s such a big dog, lol
