Having. Written. Writing is work.

Writing is work, and usually demands a good amount of self-discipline just to get your butt in the chair and put down words whether you feel like it or not.

Yes, I go through funks. One of the reasons I give seminars on how to get through my panic and work through funks is because I experience them. Like a week ago. I’d been making a reasonable daily wordcount (about which I am obsessive), then outside real life worries mixed with the knowledge I’d have to trash the first chapter of my new manuscript spiraled me down into a funk.

So I asked myself, “What would make you very happy now?” Travel? An air conditioned house, or even an office? A cupcake? (I live too close to a cupcake shop) Comfort food? (I know where all those places that serve what I like best are, too).

However, myself said, “Having written.” That would have made me feel better about my day.

Unfortunately I don’t have any magical writing pens or spells that would transfer ideas from my head onto the computer, wonderfully written and nicely formatted.

It doesn’t work that way. There is no “having written,” unless you actually sit down and do the work.

WRITE!

Like many in PAL and IPAL I am a professional writer. Furthermore, I am single, without any other income. I don’t write, I don’t get paid. It’s a risky business. So I really can’t afford funks or the panic or the self-hate that immobilizes me. I can’t wait upon a muse to waft into my window and fill me with enthusiasm. I can’t wait upon inspiration.

Writing is work. I first discovered this within my first year of seriously writing. After the Colorado Gold conference, I’d joined a critique group, but my technique was so poor that I needed a writing buddy (also a new writer) to meet with and look at my pages before I took them to critique. I’d written a new scene and met with my buddy one Saturday morning at the hideous hour of seven a.m. across town. I knew the scene was good.

She said so, too. But then she said the fatal words, “This is a great scene but it doesn’t belong in the book.” It was extraneous to the story. In fact, it was backstory.

So I sat there, staring down at curdling eggs, at too-early-a-time-of-day-for-me-to-even-be-awake-on-Saturday, looking at pages that had taken me hours to write and polish. That was when I knew writing wasn’t just fun, it was work.

Most of the time, it remains work. Oh, like everyone, I have those days of giddy inspiration, those bursts of fabulous words that flow faster than I can type, but, really, a lot of the time it is plinking one word down at a time. I don’t consider myself a literary writer, one who strings together beautiful phrases. I consider myself a workmanlike writer of good technique who can fashion interesting characters and tell good stories.

I also got my start in publishing when self-publishing wasn’t much of an option, and after I wrote my million words, put in my ten thousand hours to become proficient. Most of the time I can take myself into my office and write, even if I have a little depression or fear. Most of the time I like the process of writing, too, though the story might dribble out word by word.

But I ALWAYS love “having written.” Even if I don’t think the words are great, or am dubious about whether the scene will remain in the manuscript, or if I took a wrong turn. I wrote. I did my job.

May all your writing dreams come true.