How Writing Actually Accumulates

I have been thinking today about how anything we write actually comes into being. Everyone is different and gets inspiration and ideas from all over the place – there are a million generative workshops to be done just on getting those ideas, which are really brilliant and I do some myself – but how we treat those ideas is often different. I swear, many people think if they don’t have a finished story in twenty minutes they must be a failure. I have had people actually apologise about not having a publishable finished story at the end of a workshop. And they are doing that because some people in the workshop seem to do just that and read this amazingly complex and complete story that they’ve just created. 

For the record, I think that is rare, and maybe the person who wrote it had that idea floating around in their heads for weeks and the workshop gave them a A-ha! moment. That’s my theory. I don’t think any story just comes out of the blue. I think we have these seeds in us that are just waiting to be watered or – and this is gross! – the ideas are like flea eggs that sit in the carpet piles of empty houses for up to a year, waiting for the temperature to change or the vibrations of feet once someone moves in (look that up, it’s true). And then, boom, it looks like a stroke of genius that a particular prompt just now made them write this wonderful story.

I think that as long as you write something every day, no matter what that is (to do list, grievances, wish list, a list of all your family members, strange quirks people have list, list of potential story titles – anything) eventually ideas and stories will start to come together. Every day I try to write something that might fit in a tweet (so 280 characters) – this comes from when I used to do VSS365, which I am not sure still runs – and the point is to get something that forms the basis of an idea, almost like a treatment for a story, without spending too much time agonising, and also keeping the words and ideas succinct. I have a folder full of them, and I refer to it when I need to.

Setting yourself too high a goal is just setting yourself up for disappointment on those days you just can’t do it because you have to take your dog to the vet, or your daughter needs new football boots, and the sale is on NOW.
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Every story, every novel starts with one word, and then a sentence, and the a paragraph, and then a chapter. Some people thrive on looking ahead and knowing where it all ends, but if you just freeze your writing into moments, into NOW…. Just write that first word, that first sentence… gaze at it and then write some more.
Tell me, what small writing habit has made all the difference to you. I would love to hear. Click on comments and let me know.