{"id":627,"date":"2015-06-26T19:55:08","date_gmt":"2015-06-27T02:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/?p=627"},"modified":"2015-08-20T23:13:27","modified_gmt":"2015-08-21T06:13:27","slug":"sudden-comprehension-of-writing-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/sudden-comprehension-of-writing-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"Sudden Comprehension of Writing Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u00a0once again find myself struggling to get my weekly blog post up in time. The one I had planned is still a mess. I spent way too long trying to rewrite it from scratch, only to delete every single word. My head is also a mess, partly due to me having a sick day. I was going to take that as an excuse, but after putting off working on this post for the past two days, all I\u2019ve done is set myself up to fail on the day the work is due.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve engineered my own failure simply by falling out of the daily habit. My post\/week schedule has often led to me only writing once a week, which is not enough if I\u2019m going to write something weekly worth a damn. A weekly blog post has been a good tangible goal. It\u2019s at least kept me honest, as I\u2019ve not completely failed to deliver so far \u2013 even if I\u2019ve got a few in a day late.<\/p>\n

However, I\u2019m past the point where just getting it done is good enough. I insist what I post be more than merely passable, which means putting in enough time to not just do a first and final draft, but get a second draft in as well. My first drafts are hot garbage, and cobbling them into something reasonable takes more than one edit \u2013 always \u2013 and too often I let myself forget this and post something sub-par.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s post is an example of sub-par shit. All I\u2019m doing is berating myself, and posting it in public to hammer it into my head with shame. So, in the interest of writing something useful, here is what I must do to avoid this dilemma in the future (apologies for having to break my one-fuck-per-article rule, but this needs to be said in exactly this way):<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Just Fucking Write.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Just Fucking Write Every Fucking Day.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. If You Don\u2019t Fucking Feel Like Writing, See Rule Fucking One.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Following this, a direct order from the executive in the top floor of my brain,\u00a0is the only way I got this much done today. I was reading (in a classic work-avoidance move) an article on the artist Moebius giving advice about training your hand so it obeys you when you sit down to draw. I\u2019ve been doing this when it comes to drawing, but not with writing. This realization, so obvious because I know this<\/i>, set my brain on fire.<\/p>\n

    So, there you go. I forced myself to sit down and write this, and it might not be good, but what I sat down to write is a vow that I will do the same tomorrow, and the next day, and so on until I can call myself a writer and not feel like a fraud.<\/p>\n

    Edit: I\u2019ve figured out exactly how I\u2019m going to do this. I\u2019ve blocked out an hour for writing, every day, in my calendar app. I\u2019m allowed to shuffle this block around the whole day, but I\u2019m not allowed to delete it. If I find the block nudged against midnight, and myself biting my nails waiting for that last hour to pass, I must sit the whole session in front of a blank page and write whatever bullshit comes to me.<\/p>\n

    In theory, once my brain gets used to the discipline, my brain should be primed to write something better than bullshit \u2013 but until then, if only bullshit comes, then bullshit it must be. It just has to be something<\/i>. I\u2019ve heard enough writers say this works that who am I to argue it won\u2019t work for me if I\u2019ve never tried it.<\/i><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I\u00a0once again find myself struggling to get my weekly blog post up in time. The one I had planned is still a mess. I spent way too long trying to rewrite it from scratch, only to delete every single word. My head is also a mess, partly due to me having a sick day. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,19],"tags":[15,25,36],"class_list":["post-627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-living","category-writing","tag-bullshittery","tag-practice","tag-things-that-make-you-go-duh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":635,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions\/635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}