I have been stuck. My blog, journal, emails, and projects have just been sitting there staring at me. And I’ve sat staring back.
But this afternoon I discovered a way to get unstuck. If you’re losing in a mindless staring contest with your computer screen, too, this will help.
Resistance.
How do you stay focused when you’re writing?
I was in the middle of a ghostwriting project, and I kept hitting a wall. One problem after another and I just couldn’t think a way out. How did I deal with it?
Facebook games, obviously. CityVille. Kingdoms of Camelot. Zynga Poker when things were going really bad.
Unfortunately, my “solution” only seemed to make things worse. I needed to refocus. That’s when I remembered a trick Donald Miller uses…
So how does it all work?
We’ve discovered hundreds of big insights and little truths in our quest to become great writers. Every day we’re going to dole out a lesson we’ve learned.
We’ll talk about how Hemingway strove to write in the style of the French impressionist Cezanne painted. Or how Malcolm Gladwell plays dumb in order to put himself in the reader’s shoes. Or how mystery writers like Agatha Christie introduce puzzle elements to lead the reader on like Hansel and Gretel. (By the way, have you ever noticed that people who love mystery novels are obsessive about their crossword puzzles?) Or how Annie Dillard describes scenes in terse detail to make you feel like you’re right there with her.
We are on a quest. We’ve read hundreds of books. We’ve talked to dozens of people. We’ve spent months scouring the internet.
We are on a quest to become great writers.
Not better. Not pretty good. The best.
And to become a great writer—like anything else—you have to practice obsessively.
