by Stewart Adams
Often I forget that the most fundamental and core task in writing is writing itself. It sounds so simple in theory but isn’t always so in practice.
‘Two hundred crappy words a day, that’s it’ – a quote heard by author and ‘enthusiast’, Mark Manson, and spoken by an unnamed author of over 70 books in response to how they could get so much done.
It wasn’t the mammoth effort of writing a novel. It was setting the achievable goal of two hundred words every day. Not with the goal of Shakespearean or Pulitzer-winning work. Just the simple act of writing and putting words on paper.
It is so easy to get distracted by the endless numbers of courses that are offered. To get sucked into the endless foundations of your story, spending countless hours making sure it’s historically accurate or plausibly sound or, worst of all, to lose all motivation and drive when you read some extraordinary piece of work that disheartens with its Everest-like peak. When all you need to remember to improve and progress are the following points:
Write.
Write your story.
Your message.
Do a little bit every day.
Some days it will be easy and the words will flow forth like a crystal clear river.
Other days you’ll have to dig long and hard just to come up with enough muddy water to fill the bucket.
Both of these are making progress. Both start from just spending that twenty minutes with pen to paper or fingers to keys.
If you are a writer, you must write. Then before you know it, you’ll be like me and have written 200 crappy words for the day.