If one thing is vital to a writer's day, it is the morning pages. It helps absolutely. Whether you call it Morning Pages, or Novel Diary, it jump starts a writer's day. In the morning when you haven't primed yourself up yet, and you are groggy from sleep, you need this.
I've been practicing writing the Morning Pages, and it has worked wonders. I get more easily and quickly attuned to a writer's mindset. I get focused in what I need to do during the day. I can make a link with the previous day's work, and then continue from there.
Just as a journal can be useful to any person, these pages are useful to a writer. I am a living proof. They are even more needed after a weekend, when I don't write, to go back to the working mode. I forget my work during the weekend, which I devote to my family. So, getting back to work on Monday is a bit tough.
I have to orient myself to the stream of thought. I have to pick up from where I'd left. The novel's complexity comes back when I delve deep into myself, and that I can do when I write my pages.
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Monday, February 15, 2016
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Regularity: Sticking to it all the way
Over the years, I've realized that if you have the talent to write, if you know how to compose a piece of work, whether prose or poetry, short story or novel, the next important thing is carrying power.
How long can you persevere at it? Writing is not for those with a faint heart. It demands total dedication and long hours of work. Merely writing words on paper (or the computer) isn't called writing. It has to be readable and comprehensible. Someone should be able to read and understand it.
Even basic types of writing like diary keeping has one condition attached to it. That's called regularity. One has to be regularly writing to accomplish one's goal. Keeping a diary is not as complicated as writing a book, which needs more dedication, because one has to figure out the content, as well as shape that content into a coherent whole spanning several hundred pages.
When I talk about a few hundred pages, immediately it feels as if I am talking of a daunting task. To fill pages and pages with interesting and readable material is not for the flimsy or flaky minded. One has to apply one's various faculties to and stand one's ground, for long hours, weeks and months, even years.
There are also some who are adept at making great starting. There is a lot of enthusiasm in the beginning, until they get stuck in a rut, for various reasons, which has one name in the writer's dictionary. Block. I don't believe in the kind of writer's block that I hear people talking about. There cannot be a block when one write's regularly and approaches writing as serious work, like any other day job.
The general belief is to think of writing as a hobby or a lighter activity. Our society doesn't give that importance or legitimacy to someone's work unless it is an award winner or a blockbuster, earning loads of money. But writing is not any whimsical activity that one can pick up and drop off any time. One a writer, always a writer. As they say, You are a writer before as well after publishing.
Many people would find it difficult to believe that it requires months, and sometimes years of work, to get that book in hand ready in print. And now, with the surfeit of information because of the internet in our lives, that little, or big volume, requires a writer to be more dedicated to her work. She has to keep all distractions at bay and write every day, even if it is less than what she set as her daily goal.
Being able to sit at one's desk and producing those words that would eventually become your book, and doing it regularly, is the secret to a writer's success. By success, I mean getting a good quality book in print and ready for the reader.
How long can you persevere at it? Writing is not for those with a faint heart. It demands total dedication and long hours of work. Merely writing words on paper (or the computer) isn't called writing. It has to be readable and comprehensible. Someone should be able to read and understand it.
Even basic types of writing like diary keeping has one condition attached to it. That's called regularity. One has to be regularly writing to accomplish one's goal. Keeping a diary is not as complicated as writing a book, which needs more dedication, because one has to figure out the content, as well as shape that content into a coherent whole spanning several hundred pages.
When I talk about a few hundred pages, immediately it feels as if I am talking of a daunting task. To fill pages and pages with interesting and readable material is not for the flimsy or flaky minded. One has to apply one's various faculties to and stand one's ground, for long hours, weeks and months, even years.
There are also some who are adept at making great starting. There is a lot of enthusiasm in the beginning, until they get stuck in a rut, for various reasons, which has one name in the writer's dictionary. Block. I don't believe in the kind of writer's block that I hear people talking about. There cannot be a block when one write's regularly and approaches writing as serious work, like any other day job.
The general belief is to think of writing as a hobby or a lighter activity. Our society doesn't give that importance or legitimacy to someone's work unless it is an award winner or a blockbuster, earning loads of money. But writing is not any whimsical activity that one can pick up and drop off any time. One a writer, always a writer. As they say, You are a writer before as well after publishing.
Many people would find it difficult to believe that it requires months, and sometimes years of work, to get that book in hand ready in print. And now, with the surfeit of information because of the internet in our lives, that little, or big volume, requires a writer to be more dedicated to her work. She has to keep all distractions at bay and write every day, even if it is less than what she set as her daily goal.
Being able to sit at one's desk and producing those words that would eventually become your book, and doing it regularly, is the secret to a writer's success. By success, I mean getting a good quality book in print and ready for the reader.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
A Warm Bath
Can anything be compared to a warm bath/shower after a day's work? If you have never experienced this aspect of life, please remember to give it a try. I recommend it for everyone. Whether one is a housewife, at-home-Mom, married-but without children, single Mom, Single Dad, and especially Moms with many kids and Dads with their hands full.
Any kind of work, whether it is inside the house or outside, whether it is in the kitchen, the bedroom, or the boardroom, results in some level of elimination of sweat and similar stuff after hours of it. And the hands might get stiff, the legs might get cramps, the neck might be bowed permanently, the back might develop an arch, the eyes might need higher power adjustment over the years. All these is the fee we pay for having and overused and stressed out body.
If only we had known how to relax, especially as easily as one can by just opening the shower, or dipping in the tub. Like washed clothes, we soak and clean up, and other systems in the body too clean up in the process. When we go to bed in the end, we are so relaxed that we don't toss and turn, we don't agonise over the day's unresolved issues. We return to the moment, back from our endless aimless mental journeys.
Try a warm bath. Tonight! Or in the evening. And let me know the results.
Any kind of work, whether it is inside the house or outside, whether it is in the kitchen, the bedroom, or the boardroom, results in some level of elimination of sweat and similar stuff after hours of it. And the hands might get stiff, the legs might get cramps, the neck might be bowed permanently, the back might develop an arch, the eyes might need higher power adjustment over the years. All these is the fee we pay for having and overused and stressed out body.
If only we had known how to relax, especially as easily as one can by just opening the shower, or dipping in the tub. Like washed clothes, we soak and clean up, and other systems in the body too clean up in the process. When we go to bed in the end, we are so relaxed that we don't toss and turn, we don't agonise over the day's unresolved issues. We return to the moment, back from our endless aimless mental journeys.
Try a warm bath. Tonight! Or in the evening. And let me know the results.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Grapes of Wrath
Amazing novel by John Steinbeck, a classic no doubt. The use of local language, and style of presentation has a dramatic effect. There are commentary chapters about farmers leaving their land in search of work and money, interspersed with the story of the Joad family.
Each of the chapters described well how one by one the characters leave their moving family. Finally Tom, the son who killed a second man, leaves, and there is little or ho hope. But now and then, hope trickles in. The children's mother is extraordinarily strong. The surviving men help her by keepin together the remaining family.
Through all the suffering, help comes in in some way or the other. There was no work, but somehow the people earned a few cents and dollars, and the members dragged along.
The end is optimistic. The poor helps the poor. Rose of Sharon loses her baby, who is born dead. But she gives life to a dying man by giving him her milk. A striking, innovative, real end.
All throughout, the feeling is of a real family suffering.
Each of the chapters described well how one by one the characters leave their moving family. Finally Tom, the son who killed a second man, leaves, and there is little or ho hope. But now and then, hope trickles in. The children's mother is extraordinarily strong. The surviving men help her by keepin together the remaining family.
Through all the suffering, help comes in in some way or the other. There was no work, but somehow the people earned a few cents and dollars, and the members dragged along.
The end is optimistic. The poor helps the poor. Rose of Sharon loses her baby, who is born dead. But she gives life to a dying man by giving him her milk. A striking, innovative, real end.
All throughout, the feeling is of a real family suffering.
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