Month: May 2011

I have followed Patrick Rhone for a while and it’s one of those writers and in general human being that I enjoy reading, listening, basically ingesting most of what I am aware he do. It’s always a treat and a pleasure.
Yesterday I had the pleasure to read his new book, Keeping it Straight. The book was release on May 3rd, and it’s a series of 48 essays divided in three sets, You, Me and Everything Else.
From the Book:
“- You – Ideas and observations that I hope will resonate with and inspire you (as they do me)
– Me – Stories and revelations that are specific to me (but also may apply to you)
– Everything Else – How to handle some of the other necessities and detritus of life (that is meant for both you an me”
The book is an honest treat to read, the only thing I regret wasn’t have a hot cocoa to read it even slower and enjoy it even more, but don’t worry, I have plans to re-read many of the chapters this weekend.
In case you don’t take my word for it, and need something in advance, let me take from the book this golden nugget: “The Three most important productivity tools: trash Can, delete key, and the word “no”.”
Thanks Patrick for such nice book.
 

May the Fourth, be with all my readers today.

The hard days are those that you sit in front of the screen and nothing come out, the juices of creativity are dry, and in order to write 500 words you need a whole morning, assuming you force yourself yo stay there.

I love the days that writing simply flows, that I sit in my desk and the ideas, the characters, the story simply flows, the days that this feels easy, the days that write make me smile. Those are the easy days. The hard days are exactly the opposite, you sit there and you can’t type, you make more mistakes in the spelling, and what finally comes out it’s awful.

Steven Pressfield in his master piece “The war of Art” make a distinction between the professional writer, and the rest. The professional writer, sit and write, even when he don’t feel like it, even on the hard days, he or she fight Resistance and continue. For the longest time, I was writing only on the easy days, on the days that feels easy, the days that Resistance (also defined by Pressfield in his book) was distracted and allowing me to work without distractions.

I have learn that you will get easy days, but more of the writing days are going to be hard ones, are going to be full of Resistance, full of fears. You will, like me, strive for those easy days, and will enjoy them and cherish them, but will be hard ones that will bring you to the easy ones and not the other way around. If you want the easy ones only, you will never write, you will never show up, you will never earn the respect from Resistance or the muse. They will continue showing up at random intervals, but will never come to you with the incredible stuff, will never respect you enough, to see that you are working hard to show up and instead of bring you more easy days, will put in your journey more hard ones.

On the easy days, I love to be a writer, on the hard ones, I love to have written.

I remember when I began measuring stuff, I want it to accomplish so much, but didn’t know how to. The year, if my memory serves me well, 2004.

I began reading really early, and my mom was wise enough to never forbid a book, not only that, I can’t remember once that she said that I could not have a book, the only condition, was that I need to finish the previous one, before I could get another one, for me that wasn’t a problem. I love to read, but between 1999 and 2004, I basically stop reading. Mind you, I think I began reading a book a month or so.

In 2004 I was frustrated, so many books I want it to read, and I wasn’t. Even that by then I had quit on my dream of be a Writer, doesn’t matter, I was in love with reading, no reason to stop reading.

I decide to set a goal and begin reading, but more importantly to keep a record. My goal was 26 books. I did it, next year, I aim for another 26, and soon I move my goal to 52 books, goal that I have keep since 2007. I have read actually more than that every year, but I had keep the goal in 52.

But I have learn to track more things. I also had learn that the goal need to be possible, but require effort.

I said that I quit my dream to be a writer, not because I didn’t want it with all my heart, but because I allow the fear of others into my head.

Being a Writer is a journey, and a lonely profession, you may spend months working on a piece, then read it and simply decide to delete it. I have been working on my first novel (the first one that will see the light and meet readers), that I will self publish soon (seems like May will be the time) for over a year and a half. The first two manuscripts I simply delete them, on the third one, it has been th last details.

Last year (2010) I embark to write again, and I wish to tell you I wrote more than what I think I did, but honestly I wasn’t tracking the amount of words, so in 2011 I decided to begin tracking them, in the same way I track reading and other things, I will do writing.

In January I only track writing in general, and wasn’t sure I was writing enough fiction, or was more in the blogs, and those kind of stuff, so I decide in February to track Writing as well as Fiction Writing. The result was that I wasn’t writing enough, not only not writing enough fiction, but enough in general.

So I have been working hard to change that, in April I wrote 30,984 words, out of those 16,102 words were fiction, over 50%. This is the first time since I begin tracking (80,984 words ago) that I am satisfy with the amount of words, not only in fiction but in general.

It had been a gradual improvement, and I hope that I can during the month of May keep up with those numbers, I will for sure keep keep measuring, since time after time, has prove to be not only useful but had bring me to a successful place.