BooksGoSocial Conference Magazine
A Free Radical Approach to Writing by Holly Bell In March, in the Books Go Social Authors Facebook Group, our Laurence asked ‘…what is your writing routine?’ It resulted in 95 comments. Here are some of the words that came up: strict, try, impossible, no energy, goal, determination, need, stuck, lull, moaning, procrastinate, disciplined, can’t, tired, flagging. These are a tribute to the sheer effort, rigour, sacrifice and force of will that many, if not most, writers put into their products. They are to be saluted. Significant works have been created with these tools.
However, is there another way?
We’ve all been faced with the blank page of the New Document or the notebook. But where did it all start? It started with an idea, an idea for a book, and then a feeling about that idea. Generally speaking, one or all of the following: enthusiasm, excitement, passion, delight. And that was there in some of the comments in Laurence’s thread too when people were talking about their current projects. So how do we keep that feeling going to power us through the actual pen-to-paper/ fingers to keyboard process? If, as I do, you work from home in some form or another and so have some flexibility over your hours and work-flow, then, you are in a fortunate position. So this is my practice: I wait for the wave. Sometimes it’s a writing-new-material wave, at others its an editing or researching wave, but whatever its form, I ride it until we hit the beach. It’s amazingly efficient. The words flow, both in terms of sentence structure and emotional terrain. You know when you look at something you’ve written, and you say to yourself, ’That’s good!’? Well, that’s the result. The contrast is material I’ve forced. It’s just that: laboured, unclear, devoid of feeling or confused in its message. My beta readers and my editor spot those sentences. I nod knowingly. How right they are. I remember where I was in my head and heart when I wrote those passages. That’s all very well, you may say, but what if you have just that precious half hour that you got up at the crack of dawn for, that hour in the evening, that morning on Sunday, that week you took off work, in which to write? Don’t you have to make yourself use that time, so you have a sense of accomplishment and progress? Well, I would say, and I do have deadlines and time slots, yes and no. 59
