☕️ Shamelessly Eavesdropping
Dearest writer,
I had a wee chat with my younger writer self today, and I was surprised by how the conversation went.
Younger Rachael: I want to be a writer.
Present-day Rachael: You’ll be a writer.
I want to be one who goes on book tours and has fans and finds her books randomly for sale in small bookstores.
You’ll do all that.
I will? Really? Like, I’ll have a business card that says I’m a writer? Will I have an agent? A book deal? Will I write full-time?
Yep.
But I’m not writing now.
That’s okay.
And what about—hang on. I know it’s not okay. The only thing I have to do to be a writer is to write, yadda et cetera. But I’m not writing. I can’t seem to make myself do it.
I know. And it’s okay.
HOW is it okay? It makes me NOT a writer. You’re really from my future? Can’t you tell me how to believe in my writing? Because right now, anything I write disappoints me.
That’s not going to stop.
Shit.
But it starts to not matter.
Yeah, right.
Everything you write will go someplace unexpected. It’ll always be better than you thought in some places and worse than you wanted it to be in others. You’ll fail at writing every single book you ever attempt to write.
Oh, my god.
It’s fine, though, because you were wrong about the original ideas. The books you DO end up writing are never what you planned.
Do you really have to—
They’re better. They’re so much better.
suspiciously: Why?
Because the books teach you what they want to be as you go along.
I guess… that sounds kind of okay.
laughs. Yeah, those books are sure going to teach you the hard way.
Future me is not that comforting, you know that?
Sorry. What else do you want to know?
How do I make myself write?
shrug. You don’t.
I give up. Just give me the bad news you’re obviously hoping I ask for.
It’s the opposite. You stop making yourself, and you start showing up, instead.
What does that even mean?
You finally realize that writing doesn’t take actual discipline or motivation. In fact, guilting or beating yourself up just backfires.
Then what am I supposed to do?
Put your butt in the chair and your hands on the keyboard and write some bad-to-mediocre words. If you do that more days than you don’t, you end up with a book.
A whole book.
Girl. Books. Lots of them.
Just by showing up in the chair? Don’t I have to be a great writer, though? I’m not that yet!
And you never will be.
Can you give me a break already?
Breathe. You’re a good, solid writer. You’ll get better, too. And here’s the magic, you’ll learn to be an amazing reviser. That’ll close the gap between good enough and really good.
But not great? You’re still not saying great.
I mean, I think the books we write are amazing. But it’s all subjective, right?
I guess. Just write some mediocre words?
Don’t even try to do that. Set your goal for time in the chair. Start with fifteen minutes. Or five! Like Neil Gaiman says, you can do nothing or you can write. Either option is just fine during your writing time. It’s easy to sit in a chair and stare at a computer. Eventually, you’ll get bored enough to write.
That seems dumb.
Maybe. But it’s the best trick of all, even though it seems to be a trade secret. We went to grad school for writing, remember?
But no one told us this.
Exactly.
I don’t have to be great?
Not even good. You just have to put yourself in the chair and either do nothing or write badly for a little while. Then give yourself a reward and do it again soon. That’ll add up to books that not only you love but that readers love, too.
I should probably read some more books and take some more classes before I really get started. I’m almost ready.
You’ll only learn how to write by writing.
You make it sound easy. It can’t be that easy.
Truly, my love, it is. You can relax a little if you want.
You know I’m never going to do that, right?
laughs. I do.
I can’t wait to get where you are now.
Take your time. There’s no rush.
But—
I promise. There’s no rush at all. You’re right on time.
love,
Rachael
PS - Next week, you’re lovingly invited to do exactly this with me. At my online retreat, we’ll spend a total of 9 hours over 3 days writing (or not writing, as the case may be). You can bring something you’re working on or come with a blank slate. We’ll hang out and be really kind to our writer selves. And we’ll do some lovely, bad-to-mediocre, perfectly gorgeous writing, too. All the details to join us are HERE.
PPS - I just finished Slow Productivity by Cal Newport. I liked it, didn’t love it like I did Deep Work, but I adored this quote he presented:
John McPhee marveled at the idea that anyone might think of him as being unusually hardworking: “And if somebody says to me, ‘You’re a prolific writer’—it seems so odd. It’s like the difference between geological time and human time. On a certain scale, it does look like I do a lot. But that’s my day, all day long, sitting there wondering when I’m going to be able to get started. And the routine of doing this six days a week puts a little drop in a bucket each day, and that’s the key. Because if you put a drop in a bucket every day, after three hundred and sixty-five days, the bucket’s going to have some water in it.”
PPPS - Those are Amazon affiliate book links above, because I’m a working artist and every penny counts. Obviously, though, we love an indie bookstore! Other wonderfully kind ways to support me are to join my Patreon at any level or to buy my books or request them at your local library! Forwarding this to a like-minded writer friend is also such a keen-bean thing to do, and they can subscribe right here: