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Writing Even When Conditions Aren’t Perfect
I’m traveling this week, so I thought I’d discuss taking your writing practice on the fly. Too often, we put off writing until the stars align to create our perfect writing conditions – we’re waiting until we build our tricked-out writing shed, or brew the perfectly foamed latte, or assemble an arsenal of our special pens and inspirational journals. You get the idea. We think that in order to write, everything needs to be in some ideal state and then, just maybe, the words will flow. And when that doesn’t happen, we don’t write at all.
Don’t get me wrong, having a dedicated time and a place for writing is awesome – I strongly encourage you to carve out such a space. This “place of creative incubation” – in Joseph Campbell’s words – can go a long way toward conditioning you to write on the regular, helping you to develop a sustainable writing practice.
But just like we shouldn’t throw up our hands and blow off the gym because maybe we ate too much Nutella straight from the jar, neither should we give up on our writing practice just because one day we can’t find our favorite Moleskin.
All you need to write is something to write with, something to write on, five uninterrupted minutes, and a little bit of motivation. With smartphones, we’ve all got speech-to-text and note-taking apps and voice recorders that allow us to be creative and capture our words anywhere. Eminem famously wrote the lyrics to “Lose Yourself” on a scrap of wide-ruled notebook paper between takes on “Eight Mile.” I’ve scrawled out sentences that I don’t want to lose in lip gloss on a Happy Meal box. Basically, I’m Eminem, is what I’m saying.
My point is that if you keep waiting for the ideal time and tools in order to write, you’ll never do it. So grab a Sharpie and a lunch sack and go to town in the front seat of your minivan the next time you’re waiting for soccer practice to finally finish. You might just find that with the right focus, you’ll accomplish more in that five minutes than you ever did waiting for the perfect moment to write that, let’s face it, never arrives.
Yeah write super challenge #2
The third and final round of super challenge #2 is currently underway! Our participants are finishing up their amazing pieces as we speak while we anxiously await their submissions. Wish them good luck in the comments! They deserve it!
Did you miss out on registration? Don’t fret! Just sign up for our email blast so you don’t miss out on any announcements regarding future super challenges.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Nonfiction know-how:
boundaries
It’s that time again. Yeah, you guessed it: the season of family holidays. When the biggest thing on your mind is how your family is driving you absolutely freakin’ nuts and you can’t think of anything else to blog about, but you swore that with NaBloPoMo kicking off you’d write at least something every day. Don’t worry. Rowan is here to help you through it.
Want more info?
Is this your first time here? Check out Sunday’s post which kicked off the week here at yeah write. Our email subscribers can also join us in the yeah write coffeehouse at its home on Facebook. If you’ve never taken the time to read them, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with our submission guidelines. The rules are a little different for each of our challenges and we’d hate to have to send back great writing on a technicality.
Did you happen to end up here because you suddenly saw yeah write in your stats? Sometimes members of our community spot excellent writing and they send those posts on over to us. We hope you don’t mind. Take a look around and get to know our community. We’re sure you’ll be happy here.
Have questions you can’t find the answer to by poking around the site? Email us or find us on Facebook and Twitter and we’ll happily help you out.
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How to submit and fully participate in the challenge
Basic yeah write guidelines: 1000 word limit; your entry can be dated no earlier than this past Sunday; nonfiction personal essay, creative opinion piece or mostly true story based on actual events.
1. In the sidebar of this week’s post, please grab the code beneath the nonfiction badge and paste it into the HTML view of your entry
2. Follow the Inlinkz instructions after clicking “add your link” to upload your entry to this week’s challenge grid
3. Your entry should appear immediately on the grid if you don’t receive an error message
4. Please make the rounds to read all the entries in this week’s challenge
5. Consider turning off moderated comments and CAPTCHA on your own blog
Submissions for this week’s challenges will close on Wednesday at 10pm ET. Voting will then open immediately thereafter and close on Thursday at 10pm ET. The winners, as always, will be celebrated on Friday.
Thank you for sharing with us your hard work! Good luck in the challenge…[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
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