Text: Solveig Hansen, 2016

My writing progress.

“I sit, I stand up, I walk, I sit down, I get coffee — and then some more. I’m not a patient writer. But then, once in a while, I get completely absorbed in the task before me, and ideas and words flow freely. The sun sets, and when it seemingly suddenly rises again, I’m still sitting there in front of my computer.”

That’s how I used to describe my writing habits. That year, I wrote nine blog posts.

Writing requires discipline. I like the idea of comparing writing to exercising. You don’t work out for hours and then stop for weeks. You make it a habit. You block off time. Do the same with your writing: Write for half an hour, or an hour, or three hours every day. Or write 500 words, or 1,000.

Think about it: If you write 500 words a day, you’ll have a 50,000-word script in 100 days. Or, if you write flash fiction, you might write a story in a week. Or one short story a day, if you’re a 100-word story writer.

In 2001, creative writing professor Robert Olen Butler at the Florida State University demonstrated both discipline and process by writing a 4,000+ word story over a live webcast of 17 two-hour sessions. He used a 1913 photo postcard as the basis for the story, titled This is Earl Sandt. He wrote for two hours every night (except Saturdays), producing 300–600 words per session.

I watched all 34 hours — hours worth more than many writing workshops — and here’s the most important thing I took from it: You have to commit to writing every day.

I’ve always enjoyed writing, ever since childhood. I became a translator and web editor, and when the Internet and blogs arrived, I finally had a platform to write for myself. But it wasn’t always easy. I often faced a kind of inner resistance — a strong, sudden barrier that made it hard to sit down and write. Even with the urge to write, the resistance felt physical, like something I had to push through. I now think of it as birth pangs — unborn stories struggling to find their way into the world. There’s only one thing to do: sit down and start writing.

“To write more, write more,” WordPress reminded us in 2010, encouraging bloggers to post daily for a year with the help of writing prompts. I jumped on the challenge, and over time, the resistance faded. The prompts worked like assignments with deadlines. My goal was to prove to myself that I could write whenever I wanted. I only had time for 98 posts that year — but I’ve kept blogging ever since.

“To write more, write more” is indeed true. Put one idea on the paper, and the next will follow.

So, I went from 9 posts to 100+ posts in a year — and I began to call myself a blogger, a writer. Maybe I’ll become an author, but not of novels. I don’t have those types of books in me. I don’t have the patience required for long stories, and I’m not very interested in composing dialogue or complex relationships. I like writing about writing. The writing process and the birth of characters intrigue me.

Short-short stories are more in line with my attention span. That’ll be my next step on the writing ladder. No endless TV Shop style “wait, there’s more” type of stories — just straight-to-the-point ones. Stories short enough to read on the train to and from work.

I might have e-book singles in me.

Image: Pexels/Pixabay