Finding your voice: Part 7 of 10

In the last section we touched on the issue of distractions. You're writing and you run out of creativity, you no longer feel inspired and want to quit. Or you're writing and something else, something more interesting comes to mind. Something that you'd rather be doing than writing. Distractions make you step away from your writing.

In this section, we're going to address the big topic. The mother of all topics. This is it ladies and gentlemen, the reason why that great Canadian novel, or the great American novel or the great Kenyan novel or the super humongous greatest of all time novel hasn't been started. Well, there are a couple of reasons, but one of the big ones is TIME. Where do you find the time? The commitment part.

To write that great novel, that essay, get those thoughts out of your head onto paper, you need to write. It's that simple. If you write a word each day, then at the end of the year, you've written 365 words! If you write ten words a day, you've written 3,650 words at the end of the year. And if, by superhuman effort, you write a single page, that's roughly 300 words on a page, then at the end of the year, you've written down 109,500 words. That's a novel. Writing a page is a big deal, most people can't find the time to do it, but if you can, and go beyond, you can see how novelist can write a novel in three to six months. It takes time.

It takes time.

You need to find the time and not worry about the setting. And this is the problem. Most of us that aspire to write, will look for the perfect setting before they pen down a single word. A desk by the window, with writing materials or laptop arranged perfectly, writing chair comfortable, oak writing desk and the perfect ambiance. And there's always something not quite right with the setting. Something's always off. The light just isn't right. Oops, I just heard the phone ring. I forgot I promised to run to the store and stock the pantry before the end of the day. Maybe I will run out of paper, I seem to only have a hundred sheets and I intend to really rock today, after all, this is the great novel about to start. Or something like, the start isn't ready yet. I'm not sure what I'm going to write about, and when I put words on paper, I want them to rock! This has got to be the work of genius, the writing of a lifetime. So, I'm just going to let the story reveal itself to me, it will let me know when it's ready to be written.

And so we need to abolish two preconceived ideas here:

• Every setting is a writing setting.
• Write something, anything, while you wait for the great novel to reveal itself.

Like anything, getting into the groove means that you've started. Athletes will tell you, the race started really badly but by the time I rounded the corner, I'd settled down. It took starting the race and getting to the corner for that to happen. Ignore the opening. If you don't have an opening, imagine starting with the action, the stuff that you want to write. Your character is already in the vault, had managed to bypass the bank's security systems and they're drilling as quietly as possible through six inches of tempered steel to get to the gold bars. Or, the kidnapper already has his quarry, don't need to worry about how he got here, but he's in the barn, and his captives are all tied up. The young lady had already slipped a bobby pin in her hand and is slowly hacking at her restraints. The kidnapper needs to go to the washroom, and here's your opening.

And if you get tired of that, move off somewhere else. Do a little writing practice to get you into the groove. But don't not start. And even if you're sitting in front of the television, a bad idea to begin with, if your journal's close by, you can start. You can type something in your computer. Go into your bedroom, sit down, type a few words.

Don't occupy your entire life struggling to find time, but when you are home, or near your writing materials, and have five minutes, then spend that five minutes writing. You'll find that if you start with the practice, you'll flow quickly into the novel.