How I start writing
This post is a working draft. Probalby there are typos. Sentences that don't make sense are well within reason. Please don't let them alarm you.
TL;DR
Use facts about things you can see to start a writing session. Specifically, where you are and what the sky's like:
I'm sitting at my desk. There's thunder and lightning going on outside.
The sole purpose of those words is to get your fingers moving. You can keep going from there, jump topics, whatever.
Worst case, even if that's all you put down, you get to go to bed knowing you wrote something for the day.
Introduction
I saw a post on Mastodon1 asking about writing habits. What folks do to keep a cadence going. I realized when I started to reply that my answer could be a blog post.
So, here we are...
Good Things Come In Threes
My writing can be grouped into three broad categories:
- Technical stuff
- Things I'm thinking about
- Journal stuff
Each style kicks off in it's own way.
Marvelous Machines
I mostly write code. The cryptic looking text behind apps and websites. That's not what we're talking about. This conversation is about prose. The two things are connected, though.
I like to keep notes. I collect them in my Grimoire2. New entires start when I run into something I don't know. I'll jot scratch notes and code snippets. Just enough to remind future me of what I figured out.
Most notes would stop there, except for one thing. My Grimoire powers my website. Adding a tag with a few keystrokes turns a note into a post. For someone who likes working in public, this low friction approach is critical.
I usually come back to code posts. Cleaning them up, enhancing the examples. Doing complete rewrites after learning about a new techniques is not uncommon. But, they all start in the same place: working out a solution to something that's new to me.
Inside Out
Writing helps me think.
Or, better said, writing is a way I think. Putting words on a page turns vague notions into defined ideas. Filling in gaps I wasn't aware of until I needed to cross one to finish a sentence.
Topics can be anything. Most recently, it's been Big Thinking about making a social network from websites3. Movie reviews also make the cut. The diversity doesn't matter. It just has to be something that clicks in my mind to get started.
I'm At My Desk
Journal entires are cyclical for me. There have been periods where I wrote every day for months. There's also the flip side. I'm on it right now. I haven't made an entry in over a year.
I'm not worried about that. I'm spending my spoons4 elsewhere. I know I can get back to them whenever because of a trick I learned from a cat named Merlin Mann5.
The advice: just get your fingers moving
The first words don't matter. They aren't precious. They're job is to be an on-ramp. Something you pass over to get to the place you want to be. To the words that actually matter.
Because they don't matter, those first words can be anything. And, because they can be anything, you can decided what they'll be in advance. Short-circuiting writers block because you've already got the first sentence in your pocket.
I use the same two facts every time I want to get started: Where I am and what the sky looks like.
I don't have to think. Just look. Then, type what I see:
I'm at my desk. It's cloudy outside.
Slotting those observation into a short string of words is usually all I need to get going. I might write three pages after that. It might be three sentences.
The amount doesn't matter. My goal isn't to write a specific thing. It's simply to write. Putting in reps on stuff that doesn't matter so I'm in shape for when things do.
-a
Endnotes
This post could be longer. Like, a lot longer. There's way more banging around my head. But, There Be Dragons.
They're nice dragons, for sure. The problem is, they're time eaters. I need to leave them in peace for now.
That doesn't mean I can't leave placeholders for future drafts. Maybe even clues to aid you in your writing quest.
To wit, these things I've found useful:
-
The thing about getting your finger moving is what brought writing back to me after a long time without it.
See: The Clicky Sound (Content warning for talk of suicide)
- Publish drafts. Even shitty ones. You can always come back and polish them.
- Related: Read Shitty First Drafts (pdf) by Anne Lamott. It's all about getting the first one out of the way so you can get to the second one, which will be better. But, the second one can't exist until you've done the first.
- Writing is scary. Putting something down with your name on it puts you in a vulnerable position. It took me a while to realize this. It still freaks me out from time to time. But, knowing where the fear comes, being able to see it's source let's me move around it.
-
School almost burned writing out of me.
Having to write about shit you're not interested but "your future depends on" sucks. Traumatic in its own way. The baggage that comes with that is no joke. Realizing it's there is a good first step to working past it.
- Look up "Digital Garden". I love it as a way to think about a website where you have stuff in various stages of development. Make one, play with it.
- Writing takes spoons. Trying to spill ink when your out of them is an exercise in futility and frustration.
- I think about writing as practice. The way to get better at things is to do them a lot. So, I try to write a lot. Doesn't matter if it's crap. My job is just to make words appear. Quantity now. Quality will come later.
-
Read the thing about the pottery class that was split into two groups. One that was told their grade would be based on how many vases they made. The other half was told they'd be graded on a single piece.
Story goes that the half of the class that was going after quantity end up with way better pieces than the half that was shooting for quality because they got better with each one.
May be apocryphal, but it's at least directionally accurate.
- Read Bird By Bird. Also by Lamott. A longer piece about putting in the work.
- Read On Writing by Stephen King. That cat writes every day. Does it by making it the first thing every morning.
- There's a difference between wanting to write and wanting to have written. Things are easier if the first is your goal. Expect to have to push harder if you're goal is that later.
Footnotes
The question that sparked this post.
The project I'm going to be spending the next several years of my life on.
A good way to think about how much time, energy, and attention you have each day.