the craft. start.

There was a great thread that developed in our Slack community that got me thinking about what it takes to start. Let me get this out the way, starting to write is sometimes the hardest part. There have been so many times when I have done everything in my power to avoid actually getting words onto the page. But you’d be amazed at how you can surprise yourself once you get over that hump.

The major key to being able to start that blog or book is honestly this: focus on the process, not the product. I feel like I’ve said this in other iterations before, but it’s such an important truth. It’s not about having the newsletter with one million subscribers or the New York Times Best Seller. It’s about all the steps you have to take in order to get there.

It’s important to remember that no one can do it for you. Writing is work. And there’s nothing to it, but to do the work. So yes, you can read this newsletter and take all the workshops, but eventually it will come down to you and the laptop. Your hand and the pen. And you will have to conjure something up. Don’t be afraid to show up.

When you do show up, make sure that you fiercely protect your writing time. I know it’s hard. Believe me. When I first moved to LA, my husband was getting up extremely early which was not the norm. I had to ride it out a bit, but eventually, he fell into his regular rhythm and I was able to get back to my early morning writing time. It’s important to my process that writing is one of the first things I do in the morning. Quite frankly, I’m just not as good of a writer at night. Sometimes, I have to push myself to do it, because, well, deadlines, but I do my best to write when my brain is extremely fresh.

Develop your process. When I talk about focusing on the process, I mean that it’s not about finishing the book. Or having 500 posts. It’s about your consistent routine that will lead you to your finished product. Consistency and discipline is what will get you over the finish line. If you find another way to be successful at seeing a writing project through, please let me know. But so far, that’s all I’ve got. For instance, participating in NaNoWriMo this year was less about trying to hit the 50k mark and so much more about writing the 1200 words per day. If I focused on that, eventually I would hit the mark. But every single day was a battle to find that time. And no, I didn’t always make it, but I made some serious headway on a work in progress that I’d been unsuccessful at making before.

Writing takes an immense amount of brain power. So it’s not always the easiest thing to do after a full day of work or battling with restless toddlers. But honestly, if it was easy, it would be something that everyone would do. I wish there was a magic wand that I could wave to help you jump into gear. But you have to say to yourself, “I’m going to do this.” And then show up to do it every single day.

I started my debut novel in 2017. It has single handedly been the hardest thing I’ve done so far in my writing career. And guess what? Not everyone’s going to love it either. People are going to have their opinions about whether or not it’s worthy of having been published and all that jazz. But there’s not a damn thing you can tell me about that novel because I know how hard I worked on it. I know that I gave it so much of what I had at the time. And I’m already a better writer than when I started. You cannot be afraid to start.

When I sat down to write a book, I had no idea how to actually write a novel. I just knew I read a lot and I had stories in my head that I wanted to tell. This is nothing new for me though. My writing career began in about 2013 when I started my blog and I didn’t know anything about that at the time either. You will not know everything when you start. But I promise you, the only way to learn anything is to take the first step.

This weekend, I was thinking about what success would look like for me. And I know without a shadow of a doubt, that it will include how many other people I can make successful as well. This community exists, not just so I can spout what I know and have learned. But so that it can be a seed that yields an immense amount of fruit through your work as well. Permission to Write is only successful if it has writers that are willing to start.

I hope you think about something that you can start this week. An article, blog post, newsletter issue, or book idea. Do one thing that will lead you to the finish line and then figure out what consistency looks like to finish that thing.

Happy writing!

Please note: the craft will take a quick break after Dec. 13th for the holidays and resume on Monday, Jan. 3rd.