Just a quick post tonight; it’s nearly 11pm. Steve is in the kitchen watching Shane Warne’s funeral, and getting a little choked up. I’m actually writing. It’s something I’ve been struggling with for the last few months. To be totally honest, I’ve been struggling to “find my mojo” since the summer holidays started last year (in December). But I think I’m slowly finding it again. And I seem to be doing it with freewriting.
Freewriting!
It seems so basic, doesn’t it. Just write anything for ten minutes. At least that’s the way Tim Clare does it, in his Couch to 80k podcast. It’s brilliant; I love it. He’s hilarious and insightful. I shared the link with my writing group and Rupert is already already done with Day 2, as of a few days ago, and he thought it was brilliant too.
It’s still early days for me (in the podcast I mean), but the premise is that the whole thing gets you up and going again after you’ve stalled out. Gets you “match fit” for working on something larger. Already I am thinking about all of my writing to-dos in very bite-sized chunks. Morning pages, check. Podcast, check. Freewrites on the short story, check. Even the blog, here, at the dining room table at 11pm. Because I just wanted to keep going.
Brilliant.
I do enjoy the list method - for ten minutes just make a bullet pointed list on whatever. I did one today on “things I can blog about.” Earlier I did one on “various heap-beasts” in my story, and another one just listing things my main character daydreams about.
Tonight I thought I might descend into list-making, but I surprised myself by thinking quite clearly and coherently about the actual story, and I managed to plug in some gaps and come up with what I think will be a passable tale in an interesting setting.
Anyway, I’m rambling. I’m tired, and usually I’m in bed doom scrolling at this time of night. So much nicer to actually be doing this.
In any case, if you’re feeling like maybe you’ve also lost your writing mojo a bit lately, I do recommend the podcast. It’s certainly been the wee nudge I needed.