For all you budding writers out there...

[amberdreams]

Just something that resonated with me that I found on the interwebz today.  Time to give myself a kick up the bum, methinks.

“

If you only write when you’re inspired you may be a fairly decent poet, but you’ll never be a novelist because you’re going to have to make your word count today and those words aren’t going to wait for you whether you’re inspired or not.

You have to write when you’re not inspired. And you have to write the scenes that don’t inspire you. And the weird thing is that six months later, a year later, you’ll look back at them and you can’t remember which scenes you wrote when you were inspired and which scenes you just wrote because they had to be written next.

The process of writing can be magical. Mostly it’s a process of putting one word after another.

”

—	Neil Gaiman in conversation with Chris Hardwick. (via terribleminds)

Comments

[mdfawn.livejournal.com]

Me thinks I need to kick myself in the butt also. Because of RL wank I haven't written anything of substance in a while. I've got two WIP waiting patiently for my return and I need to take this statement to heart. Thanks.

[jennytork.livejournal.com]

Thank you -- I just updated my To Do list with "write for 1/2 hour no matter what".

I needed this so much.

[yohkobennington.livejournal.com]

Wise words.

There is also too many distractions *cough Internet cough*, so when you are not inspired instead of making yourself keep writing because you don't have a choice. You seek those this distractions, and there it goes away the writing time.

/sigh

[monicawoe.livejournal.com]

He is a wise man!

[anniespinkhouse.livejournal.com]

Now that is a kick up the ass that I need - I need to put half an hour by somehow.

[de-nugis.livejournal.com]

Clearly a man with a solid working relationship with the Grim Duty Fairy.

It is useful to be reminded how not predictive reluctance to write is -- feeling all brilliant and inspired is only an occasional accompaniment for a solid writing day, not the prerequisite.

None of which wisdom is stopping me from putting in the laundry and then going for a nice walk with a strawberry banana smoothie involved instead of getting right to that writing stint.

[embroiderama]

So true, thanks for the reminder.

[dante-s-hell.livejournal.com]

Well, there you go. Right there. Gaiman summed everything up. One word after the other. So muse or no, write or die.

He is just awesome for putting things into perspective.

Thank you for this. I needed to "hear" it.

Now I actually feel inspired to write! Lol!

[dragonlit.livejournal.com]

This is timely for me as I haven't written in months. The inspiration wasn't there. Maybe I just need to start. My problem is where?

Thanks for this.

[heavenli24.livejournal.com]

Very timely for me too - thanks for posting this.

I've been attempting to write an original novel the last few weeks and was just about ready to give up and start all over yesterday because I didn't feel inspired... but instead of ranting about it online, I decided to just suck it up and keep at it - haven't had time to write any more yet as I've been at work all day, but I've come home with the intention of writing tonight :).

[meus_venator]

I remember reading something by Steven King along the exact same lines. He would force himself to write for at least half a day I think it was, but regardless he wrote something every day. It's work, really hard work a lot of the time. Just because it's fun sometimes, doesn't mean it isn't simple hard graft the rest. Art is the same. Great to be reminded of this though.

[lustmordred.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is pretty much my experience as a writer. Although I take days off because it's more exhausting than it sounds, too. And I get eye-strain. And I'm lazy. And my muse is a crack-whore that insists on tapping me on the shoulder with new ideas when I'm trying to work on something else already. Yeah.