Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Writer's Perspective: 5 Steps to Doing Hard Work


"A poor man plans for the weekend,
a rich man plans for the years ahead."
—Ancient Proverb

The time to work hard is now. There is no alternative. There is no ideal time, nor is there any ideal place. The hours will pass, and the days and the months and the years will come to an end, but any adverse conditions, any excuse to stay put, will remain. We, however, can overcome this. I’d like to believe that as writers—as humans—we can overcome any obstacles that come our way.

William Faulkner 
I recently became a lover of Faulkner. I’ve only read a few of his works so far, “The Bear” and As I Lay Dying, but his writing is an inspiration for mine. He has quite a bit to say on the act of writing itself.

“Don’t be ‘a writer,’” Faulkner says. “Be writing.”

In other words, be always writing, or, for our purposes, be always working hard.

Now, this is not to say that we should ignore all responsibilities and write—that leads to a whole slew of other issues—but rather, the time to work hard is now. There is no better time to do any hard thing than right now, at this very instant. I know that I have a tendency towards procrastination, and from what I’ve seen among my peers, this is a common issue among people of all walks of life. But like I said before, we can overcome this.

Five steps to start writing now:

  1. Schedule a time within the next week to sit down and write. It doesn’t have to be long: only half an hour will do, if necessary, though longer is always better. Lately, I’ve been setting aside my Saturday afternoon/evening for writing, with Sunday and Monday for editing, so that I make my Tuesday posting deadline.

  2. Clear your workspace of all distractions. Go to a private room, or a quiet coffee shop, or a table in a library—anywhere that minimizes distractions. I like to avoid loud spaces, and I write best in seclusion.

  3. Set a specific goal. I cannot emphasize this enough. Before you sit down to write, pick a realistic target that you can achieve within that session. This will force you to start working and continue working, even if you get tired or have trouble concentrating, until you have hit your mark. This has been the biggest factor in increasing both my writing speed and productivity. In the writing community, word count is the standard of measurement, so, before I sit down to write, I set a specific, realistic word-count goal for that session, and I don’t let myself finish until I have reached that goal. You don’t have to use word-count, however, you can really choose any method that floats your boat—time, pages, or anything else, so long as it is measurable—I just find word-count to be the easiest and most universal way to keep track of progress. For all three chapters of “Deer and Daughter,” for example, I sat down on a Saturday evening and didn’t stop writing until I reached 1,000 words. All of those stories far surpassed this mark, but setting a goal gets the writing juices flowing in your mind. And typically, I find that, around the 500 word mark, I become engrossed in my writing and wind up going far beyond my original goal of 1,000 words. Bottom line: set goals, and stick to them.

  4. Plan your writing, even loosely, before you begin. Your planning doesn’t have to be detailed or long: I usually spend about five minutes to get a rough outline of what I want to say in each session, and then jump right in. This way, when you begin to write, you no longer feel like you’re staring a blank page, hard-pressed to find footing. You have the map, now you just need to make the journey.

  5. Have fun. Writing is supposed to be fun, remember! That’s why we all started writing in the first place! So enjoy it!  I read another blog post that argued that if you, as the writer, don’t have fun writing, nobody will have fun reading what you have to say.
C.S. Lewis, in his speech “Learning in Wartime,” states that there is no such thing as ideal conditions for scholarly pursuit. We have to go chase our dreams regardless of what stands in our way:

Clive Staples Lewis
“There are always plenty of rivals to our work. We are always falling in love or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favourable conditions never come. There are, of course, moments when the pressure of the excitement is so great that any superhuman self-control could not resist it. They come both in war and peace. We must do the best we can.”

Lewis is saying, here, that regardless of what is going on around us, whether we are in love, starting a new job, going through some tough times, or just doing our day-to-day tasks, we must go after life, rather than just let it pass us by. We aren’t Superman, though, so we do need to take a day off every now and again, but we can’t let our hectic lives stop of from living the ones we see in our dreams.
William Faulkner 

Good ol’ Faulkner has something to say about this, too:

“Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”

And the only way to become better than yourself is to work hard. My whole argument can be wrapped up by this quote by Stephen King, the acclaimed Horror/Thriller writer:

Stephen King
“Talent in cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”

There is no substitute for hard work. We can apply this philosophy to any activity, not just writing. Anything, from parenting, to losing weight, to studying for an exam, to making music, to working out, benefits from hard work. And, like Lewis, Faulkner, King, and myself have all said: There are no such things as favorable conditions. There is only this instant, and what we can do to make this instant matter.

We can use the same five steps that we used for writing on any other activity:

Five steps to accomplishing hard things:

  1. Schedule a time to work. There is a time to play, and there is a time to work. Set a time and stick to it at all costs.

  2. Get rid of distractions. In order to excel in the face of adversity, you need to be focused, even if the task seems as menial as doing the dishes. Focus, and hard work becomes easier.

  3. Set specific, realistic goals. Write them on sticky notes and post them around the house, or set a picture of your goal as the background on your phone—anything to remind you that you are holding yourself to a higher standard, that you are trying to do hard things, and that you can succeed.

  4. Plan exactly how you will reach your goal. Sometimes step-by-step instructions are useful, sometimes just a vague outline is best. Do whatever works for you, but be sure to plan. This way, you can hold yourself accountable if you miss a workout, or a deadline, or any small step towards reaching your goal. You are the only thing capable of stopping yourself from achieving your goals.

  5. Have fun with it. Try new ideas to get variation and to stop yourself from becoming stagnant and bored with your dreams. Find people who have similar aspirations, and join in community with them to help each other remain diligent. Encourage others to follow their passions.
So far, I’ve mentioned a lot of quotes from famous authors. But where did those famous authors start out? They started by writing in their free-time, before and after work or school, on the weekends, or any spare moment they had, because they loved it. They loved their dreams. They believed in themselves. I love the line from Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, by J.K. Rowling:

Harry Potter
“Working hard is important, but there's something else that's even more important: believing in yourself. Look at it this way: every great wizard in history has started out as nothing more than we are now—students. If they can do it, why not us?”

Harry makes a good point. Though we may not be wizards, we are still capable of infinitely more than we think. Every great person in history started out just like us: normal. William Faulkner had a wife and children; C.S. Lewis was denied a promotion he clearly deserved for 29 years; and Stephen King’s mother died when he was 27. All the great writers, athletes, teachers, parents, pastors, actors, and world leaders began just like us. What's to say we can't become just like them?

Everyone encounters adversity in his lifetime. We must overcome this adversity. We must stop procrastinating. We must go after our dreams—not tomorrow, not the next day, but right now, because there is no alternative to success. The time for waiting is over. The time for hard work is now.

Feeling motivated? Leave a comment, and share the love with your friends on Facebook and Google Plus.

Image Sources:
Rosie the Riveter: Public Domain
William Faulkner: Public Domain
C.S. Lewis:  Public Domain
Harry Potter: Daniel Radcliffe in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". N.d. MTV, Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix.Harry Potter's Hidden Treasures. Web. 15 Nov. 2007.

C.S. Lewis: Lewis, C. S. “Learning in Wartime.” Oxford University. Church of St. Mary the Virgin. Fall 1939. Sermon.

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