Writing at the Speed of Loneliness

So… this week I spent some time writing my first erotic story meant for publications.  Like many novice authors, I have written plenty of stories in the past that were never meant to be published.  There are definitely trials and errors that any author will go through on the journey to publication, and I suppose one of the most difficult is actually writing.

This might sound strange, but how many people do you know, or have heard about, who intend to be novelists or authors, but simply cannot get past that beginning step of writing what is in their hearts to write?  Most, actually.  This seems to be the biggest hurdle to a career in writing.  Many people are fascinated with the idea of being a writer, but continually find excuse after excuse for not working on their craft.  In the end, even if all of the conditions are right to sit down and do the work, these people get bogged down in the minutia of the work.

I know this reality all too well.  I have spent many a night telling the people around me that, “I don’t have the time,” or “I can’t work at home because I get distracted, but I can’t work away from home because I can’t concentrate.”  When I finally did get those perfect conditions to do actually write, I would get so bogged down in a character’s back story, a culture’s social history, or the development of some device or another that would help move the plot forward, that it would take me months to finally get to writing a single word on the page.

When that work finally began, I would spend so much time revising as I wrote that I could spend eight hours writing my manuscript and only squeeze out 500 to 1000 words.  That is ridiculous.

Then, I stumbled upon a book by the wonderful Rachel Aaron.  Her book, 2,000 to 10,000:  How to Write faster, write better, and write more of what you love, helped me to realize that I just needed to get myself a little more organized, and then just write my damned manuscript.

So, what I wanted to get across with this short post, is that I took my day off this Thursday and wrote 8,000 words of my newest story in roughly six hours – and that even includes several distractions from some of the folks I live and work with.  I cannot express how amazed I was that I could simply sit down and write my story.

Of course, I will have to spend some time editing my first draft, but simply getting that first draft complete and under my belt has been the biggest obstacle of my entire writing career.  Editing and revising shouldn’t take very much effort (revising is actually something I enjoy quite a bit).

I want to give a great big curtsey to the wonderful Rachel Aaron for her words of wisdom.  Without her, I don’t know that I would have ever stepped out of my own way and completed any work.  So, thank you, ma’am.

Anyone reading this post would do well to read her book (mentioned above), and her blog (both her blogs) – and of course, read her novels; they, too, are wonderful.