The first book selected in my 1Book 10 Day Challenge was The Memoir Project - A thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life by memoirist, essayist and blogger Marion Roach Smith. I love the way she connects directly to the reader with poetic prose.
I took away two gems from this book. The first had to do with vomiting and the importance of it - the second was far more disturbing.
Apparently, according to Marion, writer's block is a myth because we have limitless inspiration for writing. The real problem is our fear of writing badly. The best way to bust this myth is to give ourselves permission to write a horrible sick mess - what she calls a "vomit draft".
Most writing is a result of creative barfing. Write knowing you must edit later. Imagine Hemingway purging profusely on a regular basis - I bet it happened.
I actually understand and appreciate the "vomit draft". Sometimes when I feel muddled in my life I do a journaling exercise called Stream-of-Consciousness Writing. Basically, for 20 minutes I write non-stop - no stopping to reflect; no concerns for punctuation or spelling; no censorship of any kind. If during the 20 minutes I can't think of what to write I simply pen, "I can't think of what to write" until the true words start to come. It's a very helpful tool in self-analysis as well as to help with that mystical beast called Writer's Block.
Literary vomiting I can do. But then Marion suggested something else- something that made me kind of fidgety - itchy even. It's best I directly quote her because there is just no paraphrasing her idea.
" ...for such advice on writing long-form memoir, the single best tip I know is to write five pages a day. No more, no less. The great Graham Greene wrote 500 words a day, sometimes stopping in the middle of a phrase, and at that pace sometimes wrote a novel a year. When I'm writing a book, I write five pages a day, five days a week, no exceptions. Start today, and in three months you'll have a first draft.
I promise."
A first draft in 3 months?! You mean, all this is doable? Is it kinda hot in here? What is my excuse? What is stopping me? Same thing that has been stopping me my whole life...
...me.
