A Quote by John Steinbeck
Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page a day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
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You don't write a book. You write a sentence and then a paragraph and then a page and then a chapter. Looking at writing 400 plus pages or seventy thousand odd words is incredibly daunting, but if you just focus on the immediate picture - say, 500 words - it's not so overwhelming.
Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish.
When I'm writing, I try not to think things like, 'Gosh, I have to finish writing this book.' Books are very long and it's easy to get discouraged. Instead I think to myself, 'Wow, I have this great story idea, and today I'm going to write two pages of it. That's all - just two pages.'
I don't like to think in terms of writing ten or twelve pages a day. Usually I'm writing a scene, and it's always with the idea, "I wonder what is going to happen." Or sometimes I write about something that affected me emotionally the day before and that I don't want to lose. I'm very unorganized at first; but finally it comes into a structure where consciously I'm working on a novel per se.
I could probably have an idea one day and then go into the studio and really wanna write about just that idea that I have in mind. Or it can vary with just a simple beat and I just do a bunch of melodies on the track that inspire me.
If you can't think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway. If you can think of lots more when you've finished the three pages, don't write it; it'll be that much easier to get going next day.
It would just be a pamphlet. Three pages. The first page would be Drugs I Have Taken and then a list. The next page would be People I Have Slept With and then another list. Then the last page would be Famous People I Have Partied With and then another list. Because that's all people write in their autobiographies. Cut out all the bullshit and it's just a three-page pamphlet.
I began to write when I was seven, and I have been writing off and on ever since. It is still off and on. You can say that when I am on, when I know I have a book which I am going to write, then I write two thousand words a day. That's so many pages longhand.
One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly. I tell myself that I'm going to do my five or 10 pages no matter what, and that I can always tear them up the following morning if I want. I'll have lost nothing-writing and tearing up five pages would leave me no further behind than if I took the day off.
You always have your complaints about your own music. I never finish a track because I decided to finish. It's like, I just finish a track because I'm tired of it, you know? So you could be finishing songs forever, I think, if you are quite a perfectionist.
When you finish for the day, write a note reminding yourself of what you plan to do next. This helps you to remember today's great idea when you get back to work tomorrow.
For the last few years I've tried to force myself to write at least one page every day, which doesn't sound like much but it's actually pretty hard to manage. Because I'm not allowed to do a make-up day. I can't do two pages the next day. The punishment for not completing my page is that I have to eat a vegetarian meal the next day.
I don't card out my screenplays ever. I just have an idea I just sit down and write I don't edit. Sometimes the first draft will come out at 200 pages. I think and think and I go, "um this story is about the brother that appears on page 178." I go back and I rewrite.
When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day's work is all I can permit myself to contemplate.
Usually when I finish the draft of a book, I'm sure I'll never write another one. I'm just that tired and sick of myself. But then another idea starts percolating. It usually begins with the narrator's name, then some idea that intrigues me about her life or situation. I try to ignore it as long as I can, because I know when I start writing, I'll be right back into it, every single day. But eventually, I just have to. It's a compulsion!
The turning point was when I hit my 30th birthday. I thought, if really want to write, it's time to start. I picked up the book How to Write a Novel in 90 Days. The author said to just write three pages a day, and I figured, I can do this. I never got past Page 3 of that book.
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