Writing is a Loner’s Job
Indeed.
You need to be alone—just you and the notebook computer in front of you, the cursor blinking faithfully waiting for you to start your first stroke of the keyboard.
You need to be alone. Just you, surrounded by books on writing, as friends and as a portable writing coach—to help you navigate your plot. And you’re dying to be outside, to be with others.
No one but you can get the job done.
So are you up to it? Hiding inside the closet, I mean in your writing room every day until your manuscript is complete? Well you better prepare being alone when you become a writer. It is a tough job—writing that is.
A true writer understands this predicament. You want to have fun and be with friends, doing things you enjoy but you also want to write. And you can’t write unless you’re alone since you need to concentrate on your characters and plot.
Yet, the seduction of things pulls you away from writing. It is gnawing at you.
I’m no exception. When I sit in my writing room on weekends, more often than not it happens to be a nice day outside, with the bright sun and a perfect temperature. Whenever I start to plan my writing, the Borders bookstore sends me an email with a 30% off coupon and I am dying to have the book I had been eyeing for some time. And every time I want to write, the DH suddenly has all sorts of ailments that need my help.
And amazingly, I am more than gleeful to stop my writing plan and go outside to enjoy the day, hop on the train to Beantown to get the book I want and then take care of the DH longer than he needs.
By the time I get back to my writing, my interest is dim and all the ideas stored in my brain disappear. And I have the nerve to say, “I’ll write tomorrow. Early in the morning. I promise.”
It never happens.
I learned my lesson. In order to complete my manuscript I have no one to turn to but myself. So I beat myself to write every time I get a chance to write. No matter if it is only five minutes. I write. If the ideas don’t visit me in this time, I do free writing. I write where all the ideas take me. That’s how I get back into the writing groove. I carve my own writing time. I ignore the DH until I hear a cookie wrapper rustling in the kitchen.
And without knowing it, I finished my manuscript in eight months. Eight long months was a long time. But I finally have a hard copy in front of me—in a 4” thick binder.
And if I missed updating my blog, I blame it on the fact that writing requires me to be alone and not be in touch with the outside world, even if it through the virtual world.
But at least I finished my writing.
So what’s next? I am used to be alone for the long eight months and now the next stage of my writing world requires me to be with others—looking for victims who willing to read my manuscript, then get to write to agents and publishers.
Where’s the DH?
And don’t even mention about marketing!
