Keep Writing

The easy-looking, and the simple things in all art matters are more difficult than the complex and intricate. It is a rule that easy reading is hard writing, and to construct anything that the mind takes in without effort, and without being puzzled by it, is a triumph of art.

-- Charles Allston Collins, 1860

In 1876, Leo Tolstoy lamented to a friend that the book he was writing had become “sickening to me,” “unbearably repulsive,” “terribly disgusting and nasty,” and “a bore, insipid as a bitter radish.”

After nearly two years without making any progress, a concert sparked an intense surge of inspiration. Tolstoy wept as the music surged. Reinvigorated, Tolstoy returned to writing, viewing his characters with newfound empathy.

After two uninterrupted weeks of writing, Tolstoy completed what would become his most influential -- "Anna Karenina".

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Do you struggle to write every day? Come join an accountability team and compete for the prize of most consistent writers!

Last week's contestants: please reply with your score. Everyone else, keep reading!

Here's how it works:

1️⃣ Reply to this message seeking an accountability partner, or reply to another user's request. Each team must consist of exactly two members.

2️⃣ This coming week, keep track of the number of days you have spent at least fifteen minutes working on your book, blog, or other writing project. The number of successful days is your score.

3️⃣ Add your score together with your partner's. The maximum number of points a team can earn is 14.

4️⃣ Next week on Sunday, a new announcement will be posted. One member of your team must reply with the team's score. Be honest. If you lie, your pants will spontaneously burst into flames.

5️⃣ The team with the highest score will be declared the winner! In the event of a tie, the winning team will be chosen randomly.

Remember, the goal is not to write a million words. Rather, the goal is consistency—writing every day.

🎉 Prizes! 🎁🏆

• An all-expense paid trip to your own restroom (toilet paper not included)

• Bragging rights

• Becoming a better writer

• Two links of your choice (one from you and one from your partner) will be pinned in a comment at the top of the following week's announcement.

This week's competition will begin once we have at least two teams signed up.

Happy writing!

The soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism.

All ideas are secondhand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral caliber and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing.

When a great orator makes a great speech, you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men—but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his. But not enough to signify. It is merely a Waterloo. It is Wellington’s battle, in some degree, and we call it his; but there are others that contributed. It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone, or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit, and we forget the others. He added his little mite—that is all he did.

-- Mark Twain

If you're interested in the context behind this letter, I wrote an article (mirror) about it.

I watched an interview with J.K. Rowling, and the interviewer found it hard to believe that she didn't know Harry Potter would be such a huge success.

The interviewer kept on asking how Rowling envisioned what it would be like to get famous, but she kept denying any visions of grandeur. "You are wasting your time," she said at last when asked for advice to writers who are sure they're destined for the top, "Just get on and work."

When we start writing, it's easy to imagine our stories becoming bestsellers, adapted into blockbuster movies, and gaining widespread acclaim. But fantasies don't finish drafts. The path to becoming a successful writer is paved with hard work, determination, and the willingness to face the challenges head-on.

The reader doesnt need sympathy for the characters. just empathy. they don't need to like them, just believe in them as consistent entities.

If you're struggling to keep in the habit of writing but bounce off of even relatively light requirements, try writing a single sentence a day. You might be surprised by how well it works.

And this was his response:

I won the 2004 Hugo Award for Best Short Story for an H. P. Lovecraft /Arthur Conan Doyle mashup fiction, so fanfiction had better be legitimate, because I’m not giving the Hugo back.

Or the 20O5 Locus Award for Best Novelette. I’m not giving that back either.

source

Yes, I understand you want your chapters to end up thousands of words long in the final copy. But for your first draft? Just get the basic plot done. Save the finer details for later.

Being overly negative about your own work will prevent you from seeing the parts of your project that need to stay the same, or should be highlighted. Otherwise, you're just making something other people enjoy, not you.

You never know how useful your idea will become unless you flesh it out -- and the only way to do that is by writing.