I want you to go back to the drawing board today.
I want you to go on your computer, the Cloud, phone or desk drawer. I want you to look at your work.
The unfinished. The unstarted. The drafts. The doubts.
I want you to look at your work.
I want you to be aware that these pieces of tangible imagination came from you.
Now, with that same bravery, pick one to finish by the end of the year. It’s only May. You can do it!
Honor your talent.
In Love & Ink,
JBHarris
“Work the work.”
With any WIP, this is the best advice I am able to give you, fellow oracle and aspiring scribe. There is must be a methodology to what you plan to create. There must be a plan other than ‘I am going to just write and see what happens.’
This is good enough for the immediate–you can’t work or edit a blank page for sure–but that runs short. You must determine to make the completion of your WIP a priority. This means you will have to decide how not to be stuck–and if you are stuck?
You have to be able to examine how you got there.
In Love & Ink,
JBHarris
Don’t panic!
Everyone gets stuck every now and then!
With any WIP, you may get to a point when it’s not necessarily a block, but a sticking point. I call this being stuck in the middle.
This happens when you get to a point in your work when you don’t know what will/should happen next. Again, it isn’t a block–it is portion of story/project where you are unsure where to go next.
A block is a stoppage of all creativity, not the uncertainty of where to go.
The best thing to so when you get stuck is to be unstuck. You become unstuck by walking away from the work. Stephen King said that ‘the story will reveal itself.’ This means you have to be patient. You have to be perceptive to inspiration, and any creative energy.
Like anything stuck, you have to be patient. And you have to have a strategy.
In Love & Ink,
JBHarris
I’m constantly coming up with ideas. I have to record them or write them down to keep track of them all! However, the scariest part is still the start. Not the research, but the start–the actual putting of idea to paper or screen.
But the fear is always, “How is this going to come together?!” However, the fear of not doing, consumes the fear of doing. The start is terrifying! But it’s more terrifying to keep all that locked up.
Let the people in your head out!
In Love & Ink,
JBHarris
Stephen King says the scariest part of writing is right before you begin.
I agree. The thing that can cause the most trepidation is the moment right before you decide to put idea to paper.
The one thing you need to consider today is it scarier to start or stop?
Remember this: the words, worlds and pages all belong to you.
In Love & Ink,
JBHarris
One of my favorite things about writing is the work. I know that sounds repetitive, but it’s the rhythm–the fury that is unmatched! No high is like a writer’s high.
When the words crash from your brain to page or screen, when everything makes sense, and it all works together: time, effort and imagination.
Chase the words.
Find the high.
Honor your talent!
Don’t let the loud noise of the world stifle what you have on the inside of you. The death knell to any writer is when they stop believing in their own talent.
Write.
Your heart will thank you for it.
