Make Discipline Your Mistress

Since I decided to do something about becoming a writer, I have learned a number of things. My writing has improved from a technical perspective: my dialogue is tighter, I cull my adverbs, I kill my darlings, the vocative comma is a grammar staple, and I've widened my reading habits. I've still got a long way to go, but even I can see the hard-won improvements.

I've also learned that writing is hard work. However tempting it is to think that writers waft around in a cloud of dreams, ready to pour perfect prose onto the page, the reality is very different.  Every word you read has been considered, reviewed, scrutinised, and agonised over.

There's one thing though that there is no short-cut for and that is simply getting on with it. I can save you time, money, and frustration now by telling you the one piece of advice that runs through all writing courses and books on how to write. It's simple: write every day.

Write when you don't feel like it. Write especially when you don't feel like it. Don't wait for the muse to visit. She has to be coaxed, tempted, lured. She has to want to visit you, to have a reason to. Sit down at the same time every day and just write. Much of it will be nonsense, but over time your subconscious will start to connect strands of information and you will have a rich mine of ideas.

Neil Gaiman said: You have to write when you're not inspired and you have to write the scenes that don't inspire you. And the weird thing is, that six months later, a year later, you'll look back at them and you can't remember which scenes you wrote when you were inspired and which scenes you wrote because they had to be written next. The process of writing can be magical. Mostly it's a process of putting one word after another.

He's right.  I'll say it again. There are no short-cuts. If you want to be a concert pianist, you practice scales over and over even though you can play the most complex and challenging compositions with great virtuosity. Writing is no different.  As readers, we only see the finished product and have little concept of how many drafts and revisions a novel may have been through. The only way to improve your writing and to stimulate creativity is to write.

Here are my top tips for knuckling down:

• If you are serious about writing, you will find the time.
• Set aside a time to write every day, even if that means getting up 30 minutes earlier. 
• Switch off or put away all distractions. Facebook will still be there when you have finished.
• If you can cope with morning pages (as per Dorothea Brande), do it 
• Just write. Try not to pause. It gets easier.