Instinct

In one day I managed to write over 5000 words. Easily. As soon as I sat down at the computer and opened up my WIP I started writing. I'm now at 17334 words. In all my writing in all these years I've never written this far. Maybe...8000 at the most.

And when the flow stops...it just stops. I don't try to force it, I don't try to analyze it and I certainly don't plan it.

I don't work on a schedule.

My schedule is basically: "I feel like writing" and then I come out with thousands of words in about 4 hours. I stop to eat, deal with my daughter, take a piss...whatever and I write.

My biggest mistake in the past was trying to write on a schedule, trying to write outlines and all of those things. But it always ended up killing the thrill. Outlines are the death of my writing. It kills the instinct. And one of the most important tools I believe I writer has is their instinct.

When something says 'stop', I stop. And believe me, no matter how hard I try, nothing worth anything comes out. I'll go four days without writing and in that time span, I sit and read books.

I just finished reading Insomnia by Stephen King which is easily over 600 pages. It doesn't bother me or...take anything away strangely enough.
Before that I read a book called--crap---what was it? It was a medical thriller and now I'm reading something called Self Defense by Jonathan Kellerman. The story is interesting. I am starting to dig his writing style.

Last week I was completely in love with Eugene O'neil. See, I always pick up free books where ever I find them and I happened to run into a few treasures, Mr. O'neil being one of them. It was a collection of three different plays which were really just extraordinary. Why didn't we read him in school I wonder?

And even with all that being said, I managed to write a short story in less than two days and have some artwork to go with it. I actually made the picture first using Photoshop cs4. Halfway decent too.

The anxiety over everything is gone for the most part. I just write. I know what works now and I stick to it. Things that usually work for most folks just don't work for me. I thought I was being unmotivated or just...stupid. Truth was I was following someone else's perception of what my writing should be.

I I finally do see an end.