Writers: Undisciplined Need Not Apply

Photo credit: Patrick Gage on Flickr

There's a funny little truth about writing that people tend to forget: namely, that no one is forcing you to write. Writers don't write because someone is holding a gun to their head demanding that they write another novel (at least, not a literal one... I hope). Even writers who write for a living have the option of not writing and getting a job doing something else, if they really wanted to quit.

By and large, however, especially for unpublished writers, we write because we want to. Because the thought of not writing is more painful than forcing ourselves to sit down and actually get words on paper. Because we are, to our very cores, writers.

Sounds great, doesn't it? We writers have the fantastic opportunity of doing something that we love whenever and wherever we want for (nearly) free, with only time constraints and life things to get in the way.

But there is a downside, namely, that no one is forcing us to write.

Allow me to explain. In a normal nine to five job, if an employee decides that they don't feel like working, or they're too tired to work, or too stressed out, or whatever it may be, most times said employee can't just decide not to work, at least, not for very long. Most bosses don't care if you had a rough night and would rather sleep in and enjoy a nice hot cup of coffee or tea instead of getting up early for the job. As a contracted employee, you have to work. Period.

But when it comes to unpublished writers, that's not exactly the case. There are a million and two reasons not to write: you're too busy, too tired, too sick, too exhausted from your other job/ school/ parenting/ all of the above, or you just can't think of anything to write today. Especially when your writing isn't paying the bills, it can be difficult to find motivation to continue.

In short, writing requires a huge amount of discipline.

Writing is a choice. A passion. And it's a lot of work that often goes unrewarded and mostly unappreciated for years. This is something you have to accept when you set out to be a writer. It's an unavoidable truth, and without enough discipline, chances are you won't last.

I'm not saying that to be mean; it's just the truth. I see writers all the time who say they can't write because they've been hit with a terrible case of writer's block, or because they're not in the writing mood, or a hundred other reasons. And that's all good and well for a day, maybe two, but when you allow those excuses to accumulate, you'll soon find it's been a couple months and you haven't made any progress in your writing at all, and where has the time gone?

Discipline isn't optional for writers — it's a necessity if you hope to ever take your writing seriously. Because the only one demanding that you write is you, and if you don't keep yourself motivated, if you don't keep yourself writing, you may soon find that you've lost time you could have used to improving your craft to no one but yourself.

What do you think? Am I overstating how important discipline is for writers? How important is discipline to you?

Why Writing Through Resistance is Essential

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As a writer, you'll soon find there are good writing days and desperately bad writing days. We all love the good days—the moments when the words come easily and the new pages stack up quickly and you look at your fresh words with a smile and a dash of something else—pride.

When we think about writing, those are the days we like to remember.

But then there are those other days. Those awful periods when every time you look at the page you feel the powerful need to do something else—anything else. Check Twitter. Play with your Pandora settings. Scroll through your tumblr/Facebook feed. Check Twitter. Find a snack. Read that blog post. Check Twitter (someone could have @ mentioned you in the last thirty seconds, right? Right).

Then slowly, painfully, you drag yourself back to the page. Stare at it for a while. Write a few words and remember you haven't checked your e-mail in a whole hour. Check Twitter.

You get the idea.

Point is, writing isn't always easy or fun or even remotely enjoyable. Sometimes it's downright hard—so difficult, that even the most unpleasant of tasks sounds easier. All writers experience this at one point or another, and sometimes the best thing you can do is take a break. But sometimes even after your break, the words continue to fight you every step of the way.

And that's when you have to put the proverbial gloves on and get to work.

Because no, writing isn't always easy, but you knew that when you decided to do this writer-thing and you chose to pursue it anyway. Because the successful writers are the ones who don't give up, who write through the resistance, through the rejections, through the exhaustion and doubts and fears.

If you really want to do this writer-thing, you have to accept that that thing called writer's block isn't as much of a block as it is a ball-and-chain, a weight that makes every new word difficult to reach, that resists forward motion.

But it's not impossible to write through it. Difficult, yes, but not impossible. And there's a certain amount of gratitude you get from writing through the resistance because no, the words aren't perfect, but they're there. You put them there, even when you wanted to give up. They're yours.

So next time you're staring at a blank page and the resistance makes finding the words a battle, remember this little nugget of wisdom (via About.com):

"Don't get it right. Just get it written." —James Thurber

Then get back to work.

What do you do to help break through the resistance?

On Character Motivation

Photo credit: Lord Mariser on Flickr

It has occurred to me that while writing, one of the best things a writer can do is question every action from every character. Why did your protagonist say that? Why did your secondary react to that snide remark so violently? Why did your antagonist plant a bomb in a toy factory? Why won't that random taxi driver stop talking?

What I mean to say is that every action any character in your novel takes must have a motivation (and P.S: speaking is an action).

Think about your everyday life for a moment—from waking up in the morning to climbing into bed at the end of the day—and I think you'll find that there is very little (if anything at all) that you do without any motivation or reasoning at all. Even something as simple as eating lunch (motivation: you were hungry) or playing video games (motivation: you were bored, or didn't want to do something else, or really just wanted to reach that achievement, etc.) has some form of reasoning behind it.

What's my point? We don't do anything without motivation and neither should our characters.

This tends to be an obstacle when certain plot points need to be met, so our characters must do stupid or evil things in order to accomplish our goals for the manuscript. Without enough planning, when looking back at the WIP, writers often stumble across scenes where characters do something without a clearly defined motivation.

This happens most often with antagonists. In most novels, the antagonist must do some pretty terrible things to the main character in order for the plot to progress—whether it's stealing his lover or trying to kill him or embarrassing him in school (or at work)—antagonists must set our characters back and create conflict.

But antagonists are characters too, and they need to be well developed with believable motivations or their actions will fall flat.

Because I love the Harry Potter series and one of the best ways to learn how to improve your writing is by taking a look at the expertise of the greats, I'm going to use the most evil and yet still believable bad guy I have yet encountered in a book.

That's right: I'm talking about Voldemort.

As most of you know (regardless of whether or not you've read the series), Voldemort does many a terrible thing to our main character Harry. Without spoiling anything for those of you few readers who have yet to read the series, Voldemort kills Harry's parents when he's a baby, tries to kill him a dozen or so times throughout his lifetime, frees the most evil of wizards from Azkaban (wizard prison), murders many of Harry's friends and loved ones as well as tortures and kills others, goes through a very painful process of fragmenting his soul and murders his loyal followers when their usefulness expires.

And yet, Voldemort doesn't do things only because he's evil—he has a goal, a motivation: to be the greatest wizard who ever lived—greater even than the famous Albus Dumbledore. Above all else, he wants power and immortality.

Unfortunately for Voldemort, there's this pesky orphaned teenager who keeps getting in his way.

Despite all the evil, horrendous things Voldemort does, never once did J.K. Rowling fall into the trap of making him do things just to be evil—everything he did led back to his number one goal, every horrible action he took had a motivation.

Can you say the same for your characters?

Take a look at your WIP. Can you justify your characters' actions with motivations--or are they simply acting for the sake of the plot?