Discipline and Failure and Establishing a Writing Schedule
Successful creators do not see failure as failure.
Posted 8/24/20
Thomas Edison said, after an experiment failed for the ninety-ninth time, that he now knew at least ninety-nine ways it wouldn't work.
Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times but he hit 714 home runs.
You fell, often, when you first tried to walk.
If we see creativity as a life journey, then there are no failures; there are roads that dead-end, to be sure, and there are paths that turn into labyrinths, but oh, the experiences we have along the way!
I can honestly say that some of my best journeys traveled in the writing of a book have never made the final cut. And that is just fine with me. Those scenes and characters weren't, in the final analysis, integral to the finished product, but they were integral to the development of the book and I had the experience of writing them.
That's what really matters. Because no one, I promise you, loves and appreciates your characters and writing the way you do. No one will miss what isn't there, but the joy of the creation stays with you always.
As illustrator and teacher Murray Tinkleman says,
"Once you have confidence in yourself that is built on success and acceptance, then you can afford to play and allow things to be less structured and if it dies, you just sweep it away like a dog burying a bone. Bye, bye and back to the drawing board with the full realization that you have enough knowledge and ability to then control it and make whatever has to happen, happen. But still allow the unexpected."
How do you get the confidence that Murray talks about? Surely, when you are validated by the outside world, when someone wants to publish a story or book you've written, that helps. But publication may not happen for a while. It might never happen, and when it does, it's never what it's cracked up to be.
But then, as I said earlier, if writers wrote only to be published, few of us would be writing. There isn't a writer I know who has been published — not to mention those who haven't — who doesn't have a thick file of rejection slips. What allows a writer to go on in the face of rejection? How does one get to the point where there is even a finished product to be rejected?
Discipline, discipline, discipline. For the truth is, you will never be successful with your writing, you will never unleash your creativity in a fulfilling manner, if you are not disciplined.
Creativity is hard work and creative people are not favored children of the Muses. I have seen innately talented writers fail for lack of discipline and those who have far less "talent" grow into wonderful writers because they have discipline.
That said, establishing discipline is not easy. In an amusing article, Should You Write in the Nude? that appeared in the Authors Guild Bulletin, Ralph Keyes explored the extremes to which some very successful writers went "to buck up their nerve so they can confront the blank page."
Of John Cheever, he said:
"Early in his career [Cheever] put on a business suit, then went from his apartment to a room in the basement, where he hung his suit on a hanger and wrote in his underwear.
"Victor Hugo's servant took away his clothes for the duration of the author's writing day.
"James Whitcomb Riley had a friend lock him in a hotel room without clothes so that he couldn't go out for a drink until he finished writing.
"Jessamyn West wrote in bed without getting dressed for what she thought were two compelling reasons: 'One, you have on your nightgown or pajamas and can't go running to the door at the knock of strangers. Also, once you're dressed, you see ten thousand things that need doing.'"
Whether you write in the nude, in a bathrobe (my choice for years and years, until my husband began to work at home and I grew tired of his nauseated looks when, at one in the afternoon, he still found me in one of my ratty robes), in business clothes or evening clothes, establishing and keeping discipline is rarely an easy task.
And, especially for someone beginning or returning to writing after a hiatus, establishing discipline can be a double-edged sword. For, although it is important to set time aside to write, if you overburden yourself by setting unrealistic goals and failing that leaves the door open for your Inner Critic to say, "I told you so. You're not a writer after all." Setting realistic goals is paramount to success.
This also applies to setting goals that are too loose and lenient. For example, a fiction writing discipline is different from a journal writing discipline. It is one thing to say you are going to write in your journal every day, quite another to say you are going to work on your fiction every day. Among other things, in journal writing, you can write a sentence or paragraph and live up to your promise. A word here and five minutes there will not work for fiction writing. You need time to tap the passion, release the characters and let them grow.
How much time depends on where you are in your development as a writer. If you are a novice and you are having fun with this book, then having fun is paramount. Having fun with writing, not stumbling over the right word or the perfect first sentence, will go very far to unleashing the passion of the writer in you. And a discipline schedule might be absolutely the wrong approach. Just having fun will open up the door to returning to your writing again and again, until a more discipline approach is more workable and liberating.
So, what if you've already done some or quite a bit of writing and you still haven't established a reliable schedule? The first thing to do is look at your life and see what is a reasonable expectation given the other demands on your time. Schedule yourself to succeed. As you open to the passion of the characters, you will find more and more time, almost without effort. But, if you're not at that place yet, and writing every day or even five days a week is impossible, don't make such a schedule your expectation. Don't set yourself up for failure.
5 Steps to Establishing a Writing Schedule
It is my experience that someone who is not a novice needs to be writing at least two, preferably three, times a week for an hour, preferably two or three. Impossible, you say. The thought makes your stomach turn into a knot. Try any or all of these steps:
1. Make your writing space an expression of your creativity.
Surround yourself with totems of your creativity. Spend time imagining your characters being there with you.
2. Make an appointment with your Inner Writer.
Schedule yourself to write for an hour twice a week as a beginning. Block out your writing time on your calendar and keep to it. Make sure everyone who needs to know does know that you have an important meeting during this time and that you cannot be disturbed. Do not answer the phone. Have your coffee, tea, munchies, whatever, with you when you begin.
3. Go through the exercise with the symbol of your Inner Critic.
Make sure that he is out of your work space and will not come back until you are done. If you find you can't write, do not go on to do something else. It is better to lie down and sleep than to give up. Becoming disciplined is a battle and one which you must win if you are to succeed. Stay in the trenches. Put in the time.
4. The next time you look in the mirror, say out loud, "I am a writer."
The next time someone asks you what you do, add, "I'm a writer" to the list. Force yourself to say it even if you don't believe it's true. Create a space for the writer to step forth.
5. Write.
When faced with a blank page and no character or images emerge, only uncertainty or unmitigated fear, many writers, myself included, begin by writing such things as:
Why can't I write? What's stopping me? I hate to be blocked. I want to write. I need to write. I am a writer. I am a writer. No, I'm not. Yes, I am. No, I'm not. I'll never write. I hate this shit. Go away, Inner Critic. I am a writer. Writing is fun. Writing is passionate. Writing is dark. Writing is about birth and death and violence and lust. I'm going to get down and dirty. I'm going to write trash.
No one else need ever see this but me.
If the worst happens and you write nothing, do not — I repeat — do not give up. Make sure you keep your next date and your next and next with your Inner Writer. Don't make up excuses. Just keep the date. Eventually you will break through. Guaranteed.
©2020 Emily Hanlon. All rights reserved.
Emily Hanlon has been a writer all her life and is the author of seven works of fiction and a book on writing and creativity. More
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