Writer's block, an owner's guide: Guided freewriting
Simple. Click here and you’ll see one word at the top of the following page (actually the next but one, but who’s counting?). You have sixty seconds to write about it.
Why would you? Well, apparently the purpose of this exercise is to alleviate our natural tendency to edit everything—and learn to flow.
I don’t have time right now. Let me know how it goes for you.
Published on February 7, 2006 at 9:58 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/guided-freewriting.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Another one-month project
I won’t be attempting this: too busy writing up my last two research projects, not to mention other common sense reasons. But on February 3rd I got an email circular from the folks at BBC Radio Scotland. They’re organizing a month of writing with a target of 28,000 words. They don’t say when it will happen, but from the number of days in their month my guess would be that it is THIS month. Interested in joining in late? All the details are over here. They offer a daily email of advice on plot, character and “letting the world know you are a would-be novelist” (in case you want it to know that).
Afternote: as I write this, on Feb 6th, I just received their “day 7″ email with some tips on dealing with self-doubt.
Published on February 6, 2006 at 8:57 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/another-one-month-project.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Espresso Stories
No time to write? Here’s a site that invites us to submit stories of no more than a sentence or two. I’m not sure they qualify as Short Stories, but my suggestion is that a lot of the things you read here might work darned well as unusual opening sentences to inspire a story on a dry day.
I was going to say something about the witty genius who wrote “I apologise for writing a long letter but I had not the time to write a short one.” But I couldn’t remember who it was, and when I started to look into it I found it attributed to four writers. Does anyone know for certain?
Published on December 29, 2005 at 4:23 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/espresso-stories.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: NaNoWriMo research info (very short)
Very briefly, because it’s late at night and I have things to do tomorrow. I finally finished analyzing more than a thousand reports made by participants in that research I told you about and here are a few bullet points that I’ll spill for you from my memory:
1. productivity in writing IS correlated with the “metamotivational states” described by reversal theory, specifically with the telic, alloic, conformity and mastery states. More about this when I’m awake.
2. research participants who heard from me every day had a 50% better chance of staying the course for the whole month compared to those who didn’t.
3. research participants who heard from me every day wrote more than those who didn’t.
4. research participants wrote more than regular NaNoWriMo participants (no big surprise there but good to have it confirmed).
So what does all this mean? It means scientific support for a lot of what I’ve been suggesting here since the middle of 2004 – that some of the psychology of writing can be accounted for by the work of Apter, Deci, Amabile and the rest of ‘em, and that writers can be helped by those insights. I’ll say more about this in Today I Write.
And tonight I sleep.
Published on December 28, 2005 at 2:26 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/nanowrimo-research-info-very-short.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: December update
Well, I don’t usually see the point of blog entries saying that the blog is still live and not saying anything else, but here it is December already and I think readers, or anyone stumbling across this site for the first time, might want to know whether they are looking at an historical document or at something that’s vibrant with un-unleashed creative force. I’ll let you answer that question for yourself, but here are some hints. Let me summarize where I was while you couldn’t see me:
1. For the first time (and it wasn’t my first try) I’m a NaNoWriMo winner!
2. More to our purpose here, I also completed the journal that I told you I planned to keep. Doing that taught me some things about my own mental process. You know. The kind of things that are not exactly unconscious or subconscious but which we do choose to keep tucked away in the back of the bottom drawer of consciousness. The things the mind does for reasons of its own which it’s not willing to look at in a grown-up rational way without the help of a therapist such as me. In my case an example is the fact, always available to me and always ignored, that whenever I get caught up and am doing what I ought to be doing, that is the very moment when I (am tempted to) give myself a break and then I (can) fall behind after being on top of things for only a few hours.
And I say all this without having even read over the journal yet. I wonder what wisdom is hidden in there among the dross of daydreaming and self-judgement.
3. Most excitingly of all, I completed the data collection phase of my study of the writing process in other writers. Of my 107 volunteers, 95 actually took part in the project. Here too, I’ve already learned some things without even having started a thorough analysis. I am very hopeful of being able to tell writers something that’ll actually be useful.
So in weeks ahead, I shall have things to report here about our subject, the psychology of writer’s block. Not today, I’m afraid. But for the best of reasons. I’ve been writing!
Published on December 5, 2005 at 9:39 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/december-update.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: NaNoWriMo on the radio
I still want to encourage you to get involved in National Novel Writing Month. Why? oh, it’s probably more about me than about you. But anyway, just for me go listen to this Chicago Public Radio feature (link opens an audio file) by Sam Hallgren.
Published on October 4, 2005 at 7:45 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/nanowrimo-on-the-radio.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Research
I’ve been away from this page for a month, for the same reason I offered you before. I really didn’t know how much work it is to set up a new psychotherapy practice. There’s very little published information about doing business in The Field, and what there is tends to be cuddly reassuring stuff about affirmations and support groups, for people who would rather not be reading business books at all. As one of the few therapists with an MBA, I’d like to write the missing book some day. But where will I find the time.
You know, it’s a long time since I’ve worked so hard. The last day job used to work me like a dog, but most days I could stop soon after quitting time and go home and do something else. Thank goodness I love doing the therapy, and I enjoy being a business owner again, and my life partner is committed to the same goals I am.
So, what am I doing in my copious free time? Two new academic projects, that’s what.
1. I’m taking part in NaNoWriMo (link opens in new window) again – yes, I’m setting out to write a novel in a month. As if that wasn’t enough, I’ve also undertaken to write a journal about the experience and to analyze it in psychological terms.
2. But that’s not all. Separately I’ve also undertaken to survey the other participants – tens of thousands of ‘em. If four per cent agree to take part in my project that’s, nobody knows yet, but maybe three thousand research participants to wrangle. Most of them will be asked to answer six easy check-box-type questions every day in November, so that would be a total of more than half a million responses to process. If you don’t hear from me for a little while, maybe I’m a tad busy, ya think? or maybe I crashed the server.
Want to read the results? Sure, provided you contribute to the work. Sign up for NaNoWriMo (this link opens in a new window) first and then go here.
Published on October 3, 2005 at 12:38 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/research.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: NaNoWriMo: my report
I’m back. National Novel Writing Month was very good for me. No, I did not finish my novel. But I was coming along very well, very well indeed until real life got in the way. Yes, I know that you can always make time to write. All the same, I’m forgiving myself. I have a note from my doctor which says, “David had to be away from home for half of November, working into the evening and staying in a strange place.” So I excuse myself.
BUT I learned some great stuff. I learned that if the word count is your target you can reach it. Some people cheat by deliberately writing long irrelevant digressions and so on. I decided to take it seriously and write a genuine first draft of my next novel. And that’s what happened. My outline was still not perfect when November 1st came along, and I began to write anyway. And the story took off in surprising directions, and that was great – some of it may have to be deleted again, or maybe it’s where I was supposed to be going all the time!? Anyway I certainly got to know my characters better. And what I learned is that when I don’t know what comes next, I can jump to writing a different chapter, and later I have two places to start writing from, which I like, and I can fill in all the gaps somehow and sometime.
So it was good. And I have a long partial draft, and a head of steam (which, no, I will NOT be making time to use right now). It was good. I wonder if I can get up the same level of steam-pressure without waiting until next November.
Published on December 1, 2004 at 6:37 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/nanowrimo-my-report.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: NaNoWriMo
I’ve not written here for a few days, and I don’t expect to for a few
more, unless I get around to typing up my notes on Teresa Amabile’s
theory of intrinsic motviation. Guess what I’m doing instead? I decided
to participate in National Novel Writing Month.
Desperate stalkers who need to hear from me every few days could lurk over to my other journal where I think I do feel a post coming on. link deleted; I’m no longer active on the other blog.
Published on November 6, 2004 at 11:36 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/nanowrimo.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: NaNoWriMo
As I mentioned months ago, National Novel Writing Month looks like… well, maybe not all that much fun, but an ordeal worth considering, like running the marathon. Look around it for yourself, but do it today.
I noticed these interesting facts which might interest most writers:
Most people who sign up for the event do not actually start their novels. Of those who started, most finished.
Yes, just writing one word gives you an odds-on chance of being a novelist a month later.
And this: a lot of the people who stop writing seem to do so when they reach a round number of words. Just as on the marathon it’s better (they tell me) not to allow yourself to rest as soon as you crest a hill, so it’s maybe not a great idea to set yourself arbitrary word-count targets unrelated to the story. I don’t know.
Still looking around, I found these clear instructions for storyboarding in a hurry by Holly Lisle. I’m going to give that a try. I don’t think I have time to write a novel this November. If only I had an unproductive desk job like the one I fought so hard to break out of! And yet… and yet… By the way, Today I Write is approaching 12,000 words after only about three months and without any particular effort on my part. And, it has definitely supported me in doing reading and other stuff that I might have delayed; and I’m positive it has supported me in getting a lot of my other writing done.
So – as I suspected – blogging turns out to be an aid to productivity in the real world.
Published on October 26, 2004 at 1:44 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/nanowrimo.html
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