Writing Camp Day 4
EYES ON THE PRIZE, PEOPLE
Gooooooooood morning, afternoon, or evening, wherever you happen to be! And welcome to Day 4 of Writing Camp! You’ve come a long way, baby!
Now you just have to keep it together. That’s it. Basically, the entire Day 4 vibe is Han Solo saying: ‘Don’t worry! She’ll hold together!! [aside to Millennium Falcon] Hear me, baby? Hold together….’
Don’t worry, fellow campers—I got you!
What Day 4 is all about
Today is all about how to keep going when you’re tired out, losing motivation, or sobbing into your morning coffee at the thought of another day of writing (though I really hope this isn’t what’s happening!!).
Keep on keeping on
Yesterday, I noted that ‘good writing habits’ = writing habits you can maintain on a relatively consistent basis.
If I had to give this axiom a name, I’d call it the Gym Rat Rule of Writing. Because if you ask any (good) personal trainer what the best workout routine is, 99% of the time they will tell you it’s whatever workout routine you’re most likely to stick with.
But what if you’ve got a writing practice you like, and you’ve got some momentum on whatever you’re working on, but you still feel like you just can’t write?
It happens! In my case, it usually happens right around this stage, when I’m more than halfway through a thing but the memory of what it took to get there and the thought of all the writing I still have to do have me huddled in a corner murmuring, ‘I don’t wanna!!!’ (For longtime PBP readers: this is usually somewhere around the 60% mark in my ‘30-60-90’ approach to writing.)
Whenever this happens, I usually need to do one of two things to keep moving:
Change the kind of writing goal I’m aiming for
If I’ve been aiming for a particular daily word count, then I’ll aim to write for a fixed period of time instead. Or if I’ve been focusing on generating new words for a piece, I’ll use the day to step back from it and get a better sense of what I’m trying to say and/or how I’m trying to say it.
When I do the latter, I’m not trying to edit: I’m trying to produce a tentative outline of the piece as a whole in order to get a bird’s-eye view of what I’m doing. (It’s a little bit like checking in with those writing goals you produced on Day 1 of Writing Camp: it’s a moment when I can consult my writer’s compass and figure out if I’m going where I really want to go.) And when I finally produce a complete draft of my piece, I might go one step further and try producing a reverse outline. Changing my writing goal keeps me moving forward while helping me avoid boredom or exhaustion.
Read, listen to, watch, or do something related to my writing
Recently, someone tweeted that a ‘brilliant writer friend’ had declared napping to be a form of writing. Someone else who saw the tweet DM-ed me to ask whether I was that ‘brilliant writer friend’. I wish I was! But while that little insight came from some other brilliant writer, I must say that I’m one of those people who believe that anything can be part of the writing process—or, put another way, inspiration from your writing can come from anywhere.
Now, I have to acknowledge that this view is often the butt of jokes about what does and doesn’t count as writing. And in fact
used a fabulous McSweeney’s piece on this topic by Janine Annett as a prompt for her ongoing ‘One Funny Line’ challenge this week over at (which I encourage you to check out!). And the marvelous just published a wonderfully funny post on her Substack on how to get un-stuck in your writing. (She also published another piece recently that made me feel entirely validated in my conviction that watching TV is a part of writing—thank you for that, Elissa!)But the real point is, sometimes, when your writing brain is feeling too drained to write, you need input from somewhere, anywhere. No input, no output. (The latter is something my husband once overheard a coach telling a rower who was apparently training to represent Ecuador in the Olympics. I’ve no idea if the phrase led that Ecuadorian rower to Olympic glory, but I thought it worth sharing with you today.)
Day 4 Writing Prompts
Pick whichever one feels right for you today. If you’ve found something that’s working for you and you want to stick with it, great! You can even repeat one of the prompts from Days 1-3. If, on the other hand, you want to shift gears, level up, or just find a new way to get writing today, try one of the options below.
Option 1: Change it up
Look at the breadcrumbs you left for yourself yesterday. Today, you’re going to pick up where you left off, but you’re going to set yourself a different writing goal. Choose any one of the following goals (or make up your own!), as long as it’s not what you did yesterday:
Aim to write 200 words.
Aim to write for 20 minutes.
Aim to write until you’re hungry. [I’d find this one super hard!]
Aim to write an outline of the piece you’re working on.
Aim to draw a diagram of the piece you’re working on (and please share it via the Chat!).
Aim to write until you have to pee.
If that’s all the time and brain you’ve got for today, that’s fine (and congratulations on getting through Day 4!). Just take a moment to assess where you stand, and leave yourself a couple of breadcrumbs for the last day of Writing Camp. As ever, these could take the form of explicit instructions (‘Pick up on this idea and expand on it’) or a tiny description of what comes next (‘Next I want to set the scene for X by doing Y’).
If you feel like you could keep going, you can either (a) select another goal from the list above for the rest of your writing day and/or (b) try out Options 2 or 3 below.
Option 2: Mix it up
Look over the breadcrumbs you left for yourself yesterday. Then select one of the following Things That Count As Writing:
Watch a movie or TV show related to your ongoing writing (same genre, same topic, same period…whatever!).
Read something related to your ongoing writing (same form, genre, topic…whatever!).
Listen to something related to your ongoing writing, whether it’s a podcast, an audiobook, or music. (Bonus points if you do this while doing something else, like cooking or going for a walk! But not while driving or performing surgery.)
Do something physical that has a tenuous link to your ongoing writing, even if it’s simply reorganizing the shelf that contains the books you’re consulting for your piece.
If that’s all you’ve got time/energy for today, that’s fine! If, on the other hand, you’ve got energy or ideas to spare, take 5 minutes after completing one of the above activities and freewrite on any aspect of your experience.
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 get writing!
See you tomorrow for THE FINAL DAY of Writing Camp: Day 5!
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VB,
M
Thanks for the shout out and I always need new ways to get unstuck!