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Write when inspired

zeldman.com

17 pointstomh-10 comments

Meh. You want quality writing? Sit down at the same time every day, seven days a week, and write continuously for two hours. It doesn't matter if you're inspired or uninspired. There are a few gifted people who can dash off a sonnet whenever the muse strikes, but the rest of us need practise, practise, practise. It's the same if you want to be a great pianist. You have to play every day. You have to play through the boredom and the blahs because it's only after your technique becomes effortless - essentially disappearing - that inspiration can truly be released.

This is at best tangential to what you're saying, but it's something I always wonder about whenever I see a discussion about practicing writing: is there an upper threshold to writing ability?

See, I've been writing in fairly substantial amounts for about the past seven years. When I look at my old writing, it's clear that I improved extremely rapidly for the first year or so, and there's noticeable (though less pronounced) improvement for the next three or four years, but recently I think I've plateaued -- I no longer write in quite the same way I did a year ago, but I can't really distinguish between my writing then and now in terms of quality.

What's more, I'm not sure I can see anywhere for my writing to go -- I feel like I've maxed out my ability to appeal to my own aesthetic (in prose). And the fact that that even seems possible is a little painful.

I have to go and don't have time to really finish saying whatever I'm saying here. Have any of you ever felt like this? Have any of you ever gotten over feeling like this?

This is an interesting tangent, because unlike musical ability, or obviously, athletic ability, writing is independent of ones physical skill. So I would look to other skills of the mind to find the answer.

A comment here once told of how the commenter's father had been working on a physics phd, he worked hard, got a nice letter of recommendation. But when he asked to see a friends letter there was little more than the line 'Nobel material'. After that he quit for a different path.

I expect there is a point where diminishing returns become greater than the cost of effort. You may be able to improve yet, but it may not be worth it.

Maybe you could look around for a good teacher? Or even some new people to collaborate/learn from?

I actually feel my writing has deteriorated over the past few years. Part of the problem might be my limited vocabulary. I can pick up new words effortlessly as I encounter them, but I rarely manage to put them in use. I spend a lot of time just looking for that one word that could convey my meaning succinctly, but I inevitably end up writing three sentences in place of that one word.

I face a completely different problem when I'm writing for an audience (my audience being the 3 people that read my blog). As I write this comment, words are coming naturally to me, but they completely evade me when I sit down to write a blog post. The result is a bunch of mediocre, incomplete blog posts in my 'Drafts' folder.

Needless to say, I need practice. One of these days, I should take some time off from writing code ...

Vocabulary is overrated!

Simple words are the best words; if you can get your story across without jargon, and have it remain compelling, then you've got a chance.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

> It's the same if you want to be a great pianist.

You and your upmodders are confusing two separate concepts.

Repetition is important to train muscle memory and motor coordination. The same is true for basketball and all sorts of other endeavors that require "mindless repetition". Note the key word, mindless.

This is NOT true of creative endeavors. You can't "make" yourself come up with good ideas on demand. You can force yourself to write, but it will probably be junk and a waste of time as you didn't have anything you were inspired to say, or an idea you needed to work out in your head.

Of course it's still an important skill to be able to focus on tedious parts in programming, as that's how you ship.

Most of the work of writing is just sitting down and writing. Of orienting the brain toward the idea that, whether or not it would prefer doing something else, it is going to write. You say "You can't "make" yourself come up with good ideas on demand". Which is sort of true, but first of all you have to get over the idea that the point of any one session is to produce a good idea. You have to open the channel and keep it open. That requires constant practise. And you have to stop being all precious about what comes out. There will be a lot of crap. That's not a bad thing.

There's a huge difference between writing "when the mood is on" and not writing when you're exhausted. Zeldman seems to conflate the two in this piece.

I find that inspiration comes from forcing my way through the first paragraph. Usually after that point, I'm ready to go and can keep going to the point of getting cranky if anyone interrupts me.

The strategy Zelman describes may work for him--he's published books so clearly he's found a method that works. Still, I've seen these same arguments used time and time again in order to justify procrastination, resulting in nothing ever gets done.

Edit: Having written this, I guess I'm now obligated to go open up the ol' word processor, huh?

Sometimes it's good to push yourself when tired. In the book 'Founders at Work' (Jessica Livingston), there's a chapter on Steve Wozniak where he says that he hits a new creative gear when working on a problem for three days and nights straight. Not directly related to writing well, granted, but an interesting point nonetheless.

Incidentally, the only two things I actually liked doing in school were writing short stories and drawing sketches. I would spend hours blissfully writing or drawing when given it for homework, and it was never a chore. The best ways to feed the imagination is to simply read, read, read. It's plain and boring advice, but it works. I was lucky when young as I was always encouraged to read, for many people my age (early twenties), reading is very boring, but that's because they are poorly versed in it and have poor imaginations as a result.

It's a cliche, but it's simple practise at anything that makes perfect - apparently Tiger Woods gets up at an ungodly hour and practises for 5-6+ hours every day; Tyson in his prime would get up and jog in the middle of the night, and conducted a tough training regime other boxers wouldn't engage in. After the last Olympics, Phelps famously said that all he does is "eat, sleep and swim". There's only so far natural ability will take you after all.

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