You Gotta Get To That Place, Where You Really Wanna Be

Writing only really takes place, when you're really immersed in it. When you forget about your back problem, and you forget about your Facebook addiction, and you forget that you have to be somewhere in an hour. That's how you need to write, and that's how magic happens. That's how your imagination really knows you've clocked in. If you're distracted, you're not really there.

Think of William Shakespeare, sitting down to write. Would he have achieved what he achieved if he was also thinking about writing a Twitter update about his dinner? I don't think so.

Writing is really about getting back to who you are, who you've been, and what it is you need to say right now. But you can't really figure out what to say, you can't really make the choices-- it needs to come from a place you're not really conscious of. What you really need to say, you don't really know. You just need to do the writing. But you gotta get to that place. You gotta allow for it. You need to find a way to get your brain there-- whatever it is, loud Metallica records, or complete silence, or sitting in a coffee house, or laying on your back on the rooftop -- you HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO get to that place where you can flow magically between thought and dreaming, when your characters and stories and knowledge and instincts just glide in and out of each other.

You're probably thinking "I know, but how?" -- I don't exactly know how, but I just know, most of the time, we're not even trying. Don't allow for things to get in the way. Don't start the washing just as you're about to write, don't start to write just as you're due to pick the kids up from school. Find the time, decide on it --- and be present. Be there. Don't put pressure on yourself--- remember a WRITER is what you are. Go into the moment. Have fun. And let me know how it goes.

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Stephen King's Wisdom On Writing.

I want to quote two things Stephen King wrote in his book, 'On Writing' - because they are both things I really feel and believe, and I think they're quite important.

"I have spent a good many years since - too many, I think - being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every other writer of fiction and poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all."

And this one really moved me because it is so powerful, true and important.

"Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you

makes a lot of difference. They don't have to make speeches.

Just believing is usually enough."

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