Back in the Saddle Again

In the last three or so weeks, I have written as many chapters in the book I am working on. I wrote 98% of a new chapter just yesterday, and I plan to finish it today. I could even start on the next chapter this same day, easily. If I keep at this rate, I could be done by Christmas.

I'm reading more-- and writing more-- than I have in months. In fact, I'm reading and writing more this last month than I have in years.

All that free time I never had during college has been storing up. I could probably count the books I read 'for fun' during my college years on two hands. I just didn't have the time. Every spare moment was spent studying or catching up on the quantities of reading assignments and papers that I had to do each day (English major, Creative Writing minor...explains a lot. And when you throw a double minor in Studio Art into the mix, in addition to the 'Core' program in Philosophy/Rhetoric my liberal arts school requires but would count anywhere else as a second major, well...). I kept up my blog, but that was about the only writing I did 'for me'. Everything else got pushed farther and farther back.

Since graduation, however-- even though I work full-time and have my own place to clean and manage-- I've read more and written more than in those four years combined. I've plowed through half a dozen books, at least, and I pick up a new one the moment I put a finished read down. I have a lot of unread books on my shelves that have been collecting momentum, waiting for me to get back to them. It's an epidemic that I must be ruthless with.

Reading takes up time, that's for sure, but it also does a great thing for writers-- reading breeds writing. It's impossible to be a writer and read a book without occasionally thinking "I bet I could do that better" or "I wonder if I could do that as well?" or "Now why did they make the book end that way?". We learn from reading even when we aren't paying attention.

I've been reading more in the past two months, and I've been writing more in the past two months. Reading is, above all other things-- music, movies, art, nature, exercise-- my muse. I need all the other things as well, but if one of those other sources of inspiration fades for a little while, it doesn't leave nearly as massive an impact as not reading. I couldn't write without music, art, and nature, certainly. But if I had to go without any of those for a little while, it wouldn't immediately stifle my ability to write. Stop reading, though? Gone.

And you know what else breeds writing? Writing. The more you write, the more you will write, because it's as habitual as anything else. It takes practice and constant, meticulous honing. Sometimes you'll spit out 20 pages in one go, sometimes it will take you three hours to craft just one. But no matter how fast or how slow, how clean or rough the first draft may be, you won't write more or faster if you don't write.

Gee. That's rather deep.

And if you give yourself time to write every day, every other day, you will find yourself writing more and more. You'll find yourself writing better. It will get easier. You know how the hardest thing in the world is to pick up a project when you've put it down for five months, five weeks, even five days? That's because momentum dies easily. If you keep the momentum going, it will keep building until you can't pass a day without writing. It will feel odd not to write even a little bit in a day. The creative bug won't leave you alone.

I've been telling myself to stick to a writing schedule for years. But creativity is hard to schedule. The easiest way to handle that? Make every day a scheduled writing day.

So if you'll excuse me for a minute, I have a chapter to finish.