Writing Fast

Oliver Burkeman perfectly describes how I feel about writing. If I’m writing something — and I’m writing a new book right now — I find that it’s hard to get back into it if I take even a few days off.

The solution is to “write” even when I’m doing something like moving the kids back into their college dorms. I re-read a page and change a word or two to keep myself in the story. Or I take a chapter with me in the notes function on the phone, and I add one paragraph per day. It’s just enough that I put myself into the scene that I’m working on every 24 hours.

I don’t know why I’m this way with writing but not this way with other creative tasks. There is work I can pick up and put down and not think about in between, and it’s just as easy to do when I return to it. But not writing. Writing needs to be a continual flow; I need to act fast, as Oliver says.

I love this: “What action could you simply decide not to hinder today? I bet there’s something. Go on. Act fast.”