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Many of us have little or no difficulty coming up with ideas, but we falter on the execution. This is largely because us Perfectionist Procrastinators fear that if we take an idea, and foul it up, we can never return to it again--we done broke it, dagnabbit. So, we wait until we can execute an idea perfectly the first time. Of course, since one can't learn to write except by writing a lot, this will never happen.
This spiral is stupid, but common. A few days ago, I came up with a scheduling defense, and I thought I'd put it up here in case anyone wanted to join me in trying to stick to it--there's strength in numbers, after all, and I learned from NaNoWriMo that it's helpful to let as many people as possible know you're trying to stick to a writing schedule.
Basically, we pretend we have a monthly comic, as so:
1) One complete story produced per month.
2) A "story" doesn't have a specific length, but it must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. That is, whether it's two pages or 200 pages, it is a complete entity.
3) When the month ends, you're done. No more fiddling, no more editing, no more re-writing--in fact, no more re-reading. Move on to a new idea. (I suppose it could be a continuation of the last one, but it must also have a beginning, a middle, and an end.)
4) (Here we stop pretending it's a monthly comic.) Once you finish this new idea and put it away, you may either start a third idea, or return to the first one for fiddling, polishing, etc. After a month away, you'll have had a chance to incubate new insight onto the story, and you'll be able to return to it with more perspective.
I've spilled a lot of ink over the past year, but except for my NaNo-novel, it's all been journalkeeping and vignettes and character sketches--useful to a point, but it's not going anywhere without some pressure. If anyone else has a similar problem and would like to give monthly scheduling a shot, post hither: fear of public ridicule is a good way to hold to a deadline ;D |
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