“I only write when I’m inspired. Fortunately, I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.”
–William Faulkner
I’ve recently had the good fortune of stumbling across JosephHolschuh.com, and was surprised to find a very handsome, very navigable website. I should pay more attention to it.
This site is meant as an online resume, and it works well. There’s a bit about me, some silly photos, and a page full of writing samples with links both broken and unbroken. Still, I’m enchanted with the idea of a corner of the internet to call my own. There’s a compulsion to make it something more than it is. The problem with personal websites–much like the problem with Twitter accounts–is that as much as you want to tell people what you’re doing, for the most part nobody cares.
So I could take this site in a number of directions. If I keep it as an online portfolio, and nothing more, it seems silly to keep posting to the front page. A lot of writers keep a personal website so that they’re forced to write, but I think that time in this space is too often time wasted, and the best way to make yourself write is just to write.
The best advice I ever got on the subject was on the first day of a creative writing course. After a small bit of introduction, the professor talked about what he called The Myth of Inspiration. The Myth of Inspiration, he said, was this false idea that too many writers have that great writing comes in bolts of genius. They expect that like Coleridge with Kubla Khan, great works come to a mind at rest. As romantic as that idea it, it’s absolutely rubbish.
The truth is that good writing comes from nose-to-the-grindstone, honest-to-god work. To be productive a writer needs to write every day. The professor argued–and I’ve found it to be true–that a writer should pick a time every day when they do nothing but write. It doesn’t matter when, just so long as it’s consistent. This accomplishes a couple things:
- It gives a writer time to do nothing else but write. Find a quiet corner of the house, or a white nose cafe, and stare at a blank screen if you have to. Turn off your cell phone, disable your internet, and let your mind wander
- After a couple of weeks of this, a writer begins to experience a sort of Pavlovian effect. By writing at the same time every day, it becomes easier and easier to write. Your mind grows restless, and by the time you sit down to compose, your fingers do the walking on their own.
Personally, I write in the mornings. I generally write in a cafe, and I start as early as I can. By the time noon rolls around, my mind has moved on to other things, but if all goes well I have 4-5 hours of solid composition or editing in at that point, and I can spend the rest of the day doing work that is a bit more tangible.
I don’t think people like to hear it, but the hard truth is that writing is work. It is frustrating, and it’s tedious, at it can be mind-numbingly dull–but it’s rewarding as hell when you get it right.
Anyway, I’ve wandered. Keep your eyes to this place to see updates on writing, and the home remodeling project. I wish I’d have started the home remodel documentation a bit earlier, but there’s still plenty to do.
Thanks for reading.
