Finding your voice: Part 10 of 10

We're here. The last titbit of advice that I can offer. Ten's a good number. Like George Carlin once remarked about the 10 commandments, they really did not need 10. Two was all they needed. Moses could have stuck them in his f*****g pocket. The quintessential Carlin!

And with that in mind, this last item has little to do with writing, per-Se, and more to do with you! It somewhat ties on to what we said in Part 9, that life is short and you should be busy just noting things down and putting them down on paper. And so for Part 10, it's all about you congratulating yourself. You have to have an attitude befit a writer. Think of yourself as a writer and you will become one. Think of yourself as a failure, and your mind will turn that image also into a reality. It isn't easy. If it was easy then everyone would be doing it. But they aren't because it isn't easy. Even those who have been trained formally to compose, organise and write aren't writing. It's easy to take direction from someone else. Especially for money. But when you are driven to do it for yourself, it isn't that easy. And so for that reason only, you should congratulate yourself for being brave enough to sit down and write.

Like Les Brown said, whatever is your passion, that thing in your life that you were given to do, do it with all your might. If you are a singer, and cannot sing, sing even if nobody will listen to you. If you are a writer, with the urge, the deep desire to write, write, even if nobody will read what you've written. After all, that running dialogue in your head is all yours. It's personal and keeps going without an audience except you.

It isn't easy. When running marathons, I sometimes come across someone holding a poster, a sign that reads, if it was easy then everyone would be doing it. That's the truth. That is the absolute truth. Writing takes physical effort. You have to devote time that you might otherwise be engaged in a different activity to do, but you choose to write. You find that time because it's what you want to do. Life can be nothing but pleasure. Drinking beer and watching movies. And in that life, you're simply a spectator. In that life, you aren't living, but life is living through you. You aren't in charge. You're just waiting. Waiting for the sun to rise so that you can go to work and be told what to do. Waiting for the bell to ring so that you can go back home to the beer and television.

I'm being a bit harsh, but in this life, you do have some options and that is to participate. Your participation will come at the cost of sacrificing other pleasures. While your friends are out on a Friday night enjoying cold beverages, you'll be quiet, sitting alone perhaps, inside your head having a discussion with yourself about mausoleums. Perhaps it's about technology and androids. Perhaps it's about fossil fuels, the dinosaurs and the corruption of big business. You'll have these wonderful debates, just you and you without the interference of other people.

The writing life is a solitary life. It isn't easy and so congratulate yourself. Give yourself the props! Give yourself a big pat on the back and know that you are singularly what a lot of people would find very difficult to do. Granted, there are a lot of writers. Look at the bookshelves lining the libraries, or the bookstores and you'll see that you're not the only one. The stuff that writers do is in demand. People want to read, they want to read to better themselves. In each book that they turn to, they hope to find out something more about themselves. Not consciously, but subconsciously, there's a learning experience even from the most mundane murder mystery. And so your life too, uninteresting though it might be to you, has crumbs that others can feed from.

If you can set aside some time for yourself, it also shows that you are committed to taking charge of your life and not simply sitting by and following. The rest of the day may be taken by your responsibilities, your duties as a mother, as a father, as an employee, as a friend, but in that melee of moving through life, you should find some time for yourself. Like sleeping or eating and exercise. All things that you do to enrich the quality of your life, writing is also one of them.

Writing goes hand-in-hand with reading, and so consume books. Learn from successful authors. There is no formula here but you should read a lot. Read, digest and get down to the business of writing. I haven't gotten to the point of saying how much writing you should do. Early in these posts, I hinted that time was more important than quantity and I still believe that. Spending the time seems to be the biggest hurdle and so if you spend the time and only glean out one paragraph of fifty words, then so be it. There are authors who commit to writing for at least a couple of hours a day. Perhaps you cannot find that time. You can only steal fifteen minutes at a time. It's difficult to get into the groove in fifteen minutes. It's tough to remember where you were and go from there and that's why writing practise is so important. Starting by just yammering on a page stuff that's going on in your head. Not worrying about structure or even content. But if you can find an hour, in the evening or in the morning or even at noon, then that's great. Some days will be very productive, others not so. On both productive and non-productive days, give yourself props for having tried. To be cliché, it's better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all. It is always, always, better to have tried to write and failed, than to never have written at all.

And with that we summarise our ten points.

1. Pay attention to that voice in your head. Listen to what it's saying. Don't be critical. Allow it to express those dark fears and say whatever it wants to say in whatever language. Allow it to give up if it feels like.
2. Write down what you hear. Write down the words without editing and without judging. See the images clearly and note them down too. Don't be worried about grammar or consistency. Just hear and write. Be automatic and keep going. Don't re-read what you've heard, just write.
3. Get to the point where you can finish complete thoughts. Set time limits. Hear something from your head and then write it. Try your best to complete the thought. If you can't, that's OK, that's still part of the training but as you continue to learn, you will want to get to the point where that voice in your head that has expressed something concrete needs to be concretely written.
4. Exaggerate. Go ahead and give yourself license to write the unimaginable and the unintelligible. Sometimes the thought in your head just can't be sanely articulated. The way the cat looks at you, you can almost hear the words coming out of it's mouth. Telepathic communication with the dog. The room asking you to get out, the grass that's parched.
5. Along with Part 4, throw everything in the mixer and put stuff in unusual circumstances. You're no longer on planet earth where gravity confines you to solid ground. Rather, you can float in the air and fly to the south pole where you can have tea with the penguins.
6. Fight distractions by writing about them. Sometimes you're stuck and cannot move on and so you switch to your writing practise journal and describe that particular distraction. Do this for a solid fifteen minutes at least to see if it will go away. Fight the urge to get up and do something. Keep at the desk and look over the words you've written to see if they'll jump out.
7. Find time to write. Don't look for the perfect time, the perfect spot, the perfect ambiance. It isn't there. Just find a spot and sit down and write. That might even be in the lobby of an airport, the lobby of your dentist. It will mostly be in your house, possibly at the kitchen table or in your den. Don't imagine that perfect writers desk, made of oak, by the window by the sea. Don't wait till you've taken an writing vacation to write. Write all the time when you feel like it.
8. Give real distractions their due. If you're really tired, and you've been at it for a significant amount of time, then take that fifteen minute break. Better still, take a break by writing about something else just to keep yourself in the mood. Sometimes, if you're writing a novel, and you've been thinking about this character for some time, you need a break from them. Go ahead, ramble on about something else in your writing practise journal. That will be a good break. The words flow easily in that journal. Switching from one topic to another is an excellent way to take a break, better than getting up.
9. Life is short. Don't wait to write till you think you have the perfect plot. Don't look for the perfect spot to dig, just find a shovel and start digging. While you're digging, you're gaining digging experience. You'll learn a lot more by doing than by waiting. Life won't wait for you, it will continue without you. Time doesn't wait for anyone. The good comes and so does the bad, take them both. Worry about not writing instead of writing something bad. Write bad stuff from time to time if you think it will free you from that fear. Face your fears kind of thing. But life is short, so write!
10. Congratulate yourself each time you see an achievement. Don't overdo it, just a nod in the mirror and a pat on the back. If it was easy, then everyone would do it. Write that on a card and put it somewhere where you can see it every time. If it were easy, then everyone would be doing it. But it isn't and you're one of the chosen few. Be happy that you can sit quietly and pen down the things that are in your head. It's nerve racking to expose your mind and you'll face criticism, but that's OK. After all, life is short and we too will expire. So be happy, give thanks, and admire your achievements.

So go forth, open that writing practise journal and try to fill in a few pages each day.