June 26, 2012

Writers don’t need discipline, do they? Not according to one well known author.

In one of my favorite writing books (Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True by Elizabeth Berg), there’s a chapter on writing myths that the author says you should ignore.

I was reading the list and nodding and “Amen!”-ing my agreement all the way up to Myth #8. It said to ignore the warning that “you have to be disciplined to be a writer.” Really!

No Discipline? Shocking!

I recoiled. Such blasphemy! How could she claim that writers didn’t need self-discipline? “Everyone” knew you needed to discipline yourself to write every day, to study markets, to read in your field. How could she say that? It went against my deeply ingrained beliefs.

And yet…as I read on, her words resonated with me much more than I would have believed possible. If you don’t need to be disciplined, what do you need? She wrote:

“What you have to be is in love. With writing. Not with ideas about what to write; not with daydreams about what you’re going to do when you’re sucessful. You have to be in love with writing itself, with the solitary and satisfying act of sitting down and watching something you hold in your head and your heart quietly transform itself into words on a page.”

Major Paradigm Shift

Hmm…You don’t have to be disciplined–but instead, you have to be in love with the act of writing. For some reason, that rings true for me.

Of my 42 published books, I can only think of three that I had to “make myself” sit down and write. (They were a work-for-hire assignment on a subject that I had no interest in.) But I loved writing the others.

Yes, I ran into occasional rough spots. Yes, sometimes I felt physically or emotionally shot, so writing wasn’t as much fun on those days. But I didn’t have to discipline myself to write.

In each case, I had a story I was burning to tell, and I couldn’t wait for private, uninterrupted time when I could immerse myself in my fictional world–where I could make life turn out like I wanted, like it should be.

Fueled from Within

In the early years, the inner passion for writing fueled me–not discipline imposed from the outside. If I recall correctly, the need for discipline didn’t occur until I was juggling a full-time day job along with raising a family PLUS writing.

I think Ms. Berg is onto something here. Maybe on the days we can’t make ourselves write, we should check our passion quota about our current project.

Passion for writing versus self-discipline–I think I need to investigate this further! Is it one or the other–or both? And if we’ve fallen out of love with our writing, how can we get that back?

How about You?

What does “being in love with your writing” look like for you? Can you describe one of its attributes? If so, please leave a comment!

[LATER: You may want to read the comments below as well. Readers have added some important insights to this post.]

December 2, 2011

This week in the “Destressing the Writing Life” workshop, we talked about information overload–how much valuable information is available on the Internet–and the pressure we feel because there’s no time to read and absorb it all.

To that end, I hope my recommendations once a week help you sift through the wonderful (often free) material out there. To that end, here’s my Friday offering.

 

Take all weekend to read them, if you like. Do NOT stress over getting them all read right now!

• How do you know if you’re “called to write”?
• Why does this writer choose NOT to self-publish?
• Here are five steps to developing more discipline!
• Can you soften the uncertainty that comes with writing?
• Here’s a fabulous checklist for critiquing your own work or someone else’s.

 

 

 

October 14, 2011

As a writer, don’t ever under-estimate the power of self-discipline. Talent, passion, and discipline are needed–but the greatest of these is discipline.

Best-selling author Elizabeth George speaks to this point on the first day she faces her students in her creative writing classes. Study this quote from her book, Write Away–and read through to the zinger at the end.

“You will be published if you possess three qualities–talent, passion, and discipline.

You will probably be published if you possess two of the three qualities in either combination–either talent and discipline, or passion and discipline.

You will likely be published if you possess neither talent nor passion, but still have discipline. Just go the bookstore and pick up a few ‘notable’ titles and you’ll see what I mean.

But if all you possess is talent or passion, if all you possess is talent and passion, you will not be published. The likelihood is you will never be published. And if by some miracle you are published, it will probably never happen again.”

Be Encouraged!

This is great news for all writers, I believe. We worry sometimes that we don’t have enough talent, that we have nothing original to say, that our voices won’t attract today’s readers. But as Ms. George says above–and after writing and teaching for thirty years, I totally agree–discipline is what will make you or break you as a writer.

Why is this good news? Because self-discipline can be mastered, bit by bit, day by day, until it’s a habit. Talent is a gift over which we have no control, and passion comes and goes with our feelings and circumstances. But your necessary ingredient to success–discipline–can belong to anyone.

Do whatever you have to do to develop the writing habit. Let that be your focus, and see if the writing–and publishing–doesn’t take care of itself!