Wednesday 10 November 2010

Nothing Succeeds Like Success

I'm having a brilliant writing splurge. 3000 words on Saturday, 5000 - yes, 5000 - on Sunday, 4000 on Monday. And it's got me all fired up to write more, more, more. How different it was only a few weeks ago when even the thought of writing was something to be avoided. Writing? What's that? Nothing to do with me, that's for sure.

But now - now I am writing personified. I LOVE being a writer.

And all because it's going well. I'm pretty certain it will fade - I have been in love with writing before; I know I have a fickle heart and can fall out of love quite easily - but at the moment, nothing will part me from my beloved.

And it's going so well because I wrote what I thought was going to be a tricky scene, and it seemed to work. Which inspired me to write the next scene, and the scene after that. Wheee! I was off.

It's vital to have success in our writing to inspire us. Success could come from ourselves - that tricky scene that just wrote itself - or from outside - a word of praise from a writing friend, a mention in a short story competition. It doesn't matter where or who it comes from, so long as we make sure the opportunities for success are built into our writing process.

The two easiest ways of building opportunities for success are to set writing targets and share our work with others. They have to be realistic - a 500 daily word count, not 5000 - or positive feedback in class rather than 4 agents vying for our manuscript. (Not to say that these things won't happen to you, but they're rare rather than regular events.)

Whatever your writing process, make sure you have those successes built in to encourage on the way.

3 comments:

Frances Garrood said...

Isn't it great when that happens? The brakes are off, and so are you. I think that's why I have always loved the travelling rather than the arriving, where writing is concerned.

Impressive word count, too!

Nadia Damon said...

Wow - you've hit the nail on the head there! It's a wonderful feeling, and definitely my favourite thing about writing - both with fiction and non-fiction. Congrats on the word count - that's impressive!

Sarah Duncan said...

I only wish those sort of word count levels would last - they've already stopped. But memories of that freewheeling feeling will keep me carrying on..