Gooooooooood morning, afternoon, or evening, wherever you happen to be! And welcome to Day 1 of Writing Camp: ‘Finishers Edition’!
What Day 1 is all about
On this first day of Writing Camp, we’re going to focus on the most crucial part of finishing a project: making a plan for how you’re going to get that project done. It may sound weird, but this is actually where a lot of writing projects don’t get finished. I’m as guilty as the next person of just plunging into a shiny new project that I’m excited about (woohoo, dopamine kick!). But if I want to make sure that project gets finished, I have to have a plan. So that’s what we’re going to focus on today!
Let’s get Swiss
People talk a lot about ‘Swiss efficiency’. But as someone who has lived in Switzerland for more than a decade (and who recently became Swiss 🇨🇭🧀), I’m going to let you in on a little secret. The Swiss aren’t actually any more efficient than anyone else is: they’re just really, really good planners.
Swiss people plan things out yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeears in advance.
Sometimes, this is annoying. It can be hard to be spontaneous with Swiss friends—if you ask them whether they want to hang out this weekend they’ll respond that they already have a dinner/picnic/party/trip that’s been on the calendar for months. Every year, my department sends round an email asking for descriptions of courses that will be taught something like 18 months later. Every time I get this email, I think, How should *I* know what I’ll be teaching?! I’ll be a whole different PERSON by that point!
But I’m convinced that it’s advance planning like this that has given Switzerland its reputation for efficiency. It’s also probably what’s enabled the country to remain relatively neutral over the years. They may not have a standing army, but they do require every Swiss man to serve in the military or in the alternative civilian service, which means thousands of hearty, cheese-fed mountain men are ready to defend this country at a moment’s notice. (Also, they have bombs planted under their major border crossings in case a neighbour decides to invade.)
Now that I think about it, maybe most of what counts as efficiency comes down to advance planning? And maybe, if you’re a country that plans well in advance and knows how to make really good watches, then from a distance that looks like unparalleled efficiency.
So on this first day of Writing Camp: ‘Finishers Edition’, let’s do what the Swiss do and make a plan!
Devising a plan
The first thing I want you to do is to create five columns (either typing them out or writing them by hand—whatever works best for you). Across the top of your column, write down what it is you want to finish during this edition of Writing Camp (e.g. ‘Chapter 1’, ‘Book Proposal’, ‘Really Rough Presentation Draft’). Then label the first column ‘Day 1’, the second column ‘Day 2’, the third column ‘Day 3’, and so on.
Now, take 5 minutes and think about how you can break your Writing Camp goal down into 5 stages. Assign each of these stages one day of Writing Camp, and note them down.
5 minutes later….
Guess what? You now have A Plan!! This is what you’ll want to keep half an eye on during Writing Camp. Make it as eye-catching as possible (stickers! highlighting! glitter!! or just really clear underlining!!!) and keep it in a place where you can see it all week long!
Day 1 Writing Prompts
Thanks to your Cunning Plan (thanks, Blackadder), you now have an idea of what specific task you’re going to work on each day. To help get you writing, on each day of Writing Camp I’ll give you three different writing prompts to choose from. Pick whichever one feels right for you and your project.
If you’ve already attended Writing Camp, then you might recognise some of these prompts. Since our goal this week is to finish something, I recommend picking whichever prompts worked best for you last time!
Option 1: Freewritten description of your daily task
One of the things that most often gets in the way of a good, steady writing practice is fear of imperfection (this is why one year ago I made a resolution to master ‘messy writing’). It’s hard to start writing when you know that what you’ll write at first probably won’t look like at all what you want to end up with!
To get around this, you sometimes have to trick your brain into relaxing a bit. My favourite trick: instead of immediately trying to write the thing I want to write, I use [brackets] or marginal comments or simply a separate paragraph to describe the thing I want to write.
When I’m at the very beginning of a writing project, it might look something like this:
[This first paragraph should sort of set the scene for the reader re the Peasants’ Revolt. Describe Richard’s arrival at Mile End, maybe imagine what the journey from the Tower would have felt like to a young king on his way to confront armed rebels. Hunt down chronicle accounts etc. of what it was like and what happened afterwards. I’ll use this to quickly give readers a sense of how extreme the social/political upheaval was at this point in time.]
I also use this trick when I get stuck in the middle of drafting a piece. To keep myself moving, I use [brackets and bold type] in the middle of a paragraph to describe what needs to be added later:
John Lydgate, also known as the ‘Monk of Bury’, produced an incredibly varied body of work over the course of his career. [1-2 sentences: mention mummings/disguisings (difference?), ‘soteltes’, pedigree…others] But he is perhaps best known today for his admiration and adulation of medieval England’s greatest poet, Geoffrey Chaucer.
When I write these little ‘notes to self’, I usually find that the words flow much more easily. After all, they’re not for my readers, are they? They’re for my eyes only, and they’re just there to remind me of what it is I’m trying to write, or what I’ll need to add in to complete the draft later. And sometimes, I end up using pieces of my descriptions in the final product. That’s because slapping down a scrappy description essentially gives your brain permission to relax and do its thing.
If this sounds like it might be helpful to you on Day 1 of Writing Camp, then give it a shot: give yourself 5 minutes to freewrite a description of what task you need to achieve today. During those 5 minutes, do not look back. Do not stop to correct anything you’ve written. Don’t stop at all. Just keep moving forward, even if what you’re writing occasionally includes stuff like ‘I’m really worried I won’t be able to figure X out’ or ‘I really don’t want this project to end up like Y’.
Once you’re done with your freewriting, look it over, but don’t correct or erase anything. Instead, if there’s anything in there that seems useful, circle/highlight it, and maybe see if you can come up with any further notes on those specific useful bits. If you’re not yet sure whether there’s anything useful in there, don’t worry! You can either set it aside until Day 2 (the brain doesn’t stop writing just because you’re not typing or holding a pen!) or try out one of the other options below.
Option 2: Directed prompt
If you need a little more direction, take 10 minutes to write a response to one of the following questions:
Where does your project stand at the moment?
What do you think is the most exciting thing about your project?
What is going to be your biggest challenge when completing this project?
What is the most important thing about the writing goal you want to achieve today?
How will today’s writing task help you finish your project?
These questions are designed to help you think more deeply about what you want to achieve this week and why it matters. Your responses will give you something to come back to if you feel your attention wandering or your motivation slipping!
Option 3: You do you
If you’re at Writing Camp for the camaraderie and accountability rather than the prompts, that’s great! Do your own thing, and let us know about it in the chat!
Ok, folks: time to write!
I’ll see you tomorrow for Day 2 of Writing Camp!
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VB,
M