10 Weeks of Winter

The grind…

The passive intent of my 10 Weeks of Winter project has been to habituate myself to regular writing. Like many writers (or aspiring writers) I have experimented with daily writing practices, like morning pages and daily prompts, and generally to my benefit. A daily writing practice really does build up a kind of muscle that helps churn out greater volumes of writing with more ease. The varying modalities also seem to have varying accompanying benefits.

Morning pages…

I’ll take the unpopular opinion on morning pages. I don’t really care for them. Morning pages are a daily writing practice established by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. I’m not going to give it the full treatment here, so if you’re interested please look into it yourself for more precise information. The morning pages practice advocates for writing three pages by hand in a “stream of consciousness” style early (first thing if possible) in the day. I went through the entire Artist’s Way experience, including faithfully writing morning pages. And here’s what I wrote for three pages nearly every day. “I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m tired.” I don’t think I live the right kind of life or have the right kind of constitution to benefit from morning pages. It didn’t exorcise my demons or relieve my anxiety. But sometimes it did help me warm up, so to speak, before going into a writing project. I think there is something to be said for consistency and having a bit of a junk writing session before diving into a focused writing project. And if morning pages work for you, that’s great! I’ve met many people who are completely devoted to them. I’m just not one of them. Going for walk outside in the fresh morning air does wonders more for me than writing about how I feel tired.

Daily prompts…

Daily writing prompts have been far more productive for me than stream of consciousness style writing. Prompts get me out of the mundanity of my own head and into more intriguing or creative concepts. Or, at least, they can do that. I’m not a fan of prompts that are introspective and ask the writer to delve into their own psychology. This tracks as art therapy more than fostering creativity. Again, could be perfectly useful for someone whose aim is to develop a deeper understanding of themselves or bring more of their own personal emotional context into their writing. As for me, I’m looking for prompts that break me out of the boring talk going on in my own head. Prompts that throw a monkey wrench into my standard thought patterns produce the most interesting results and get me going in direction I never knew I could take. I’m looking for that kind of surprise and discovery. Writing prompts of the following kinds of construction seem to work best:

• Random Description + Random Noun + Random Action + Random Adverb/Random Noun– for example, write about:
  • Purple parsnips running falsely
  • Large machines launching kits
  • Fuzzy rivers harvesting sweetly
  • Loud ice shooting abruptly
  • White evergreens sifting night
  • Seven snowflakes talking cheerily
• Lists – lists create unlikely parings or associations which fosters novelty, and lists can be an easy way to get into the flow of writing (breaking out of the ordinary or conventional patterns of thought)
  • I really like using lists starting for a particular letter (e.g., list words starting with “S”)
  • Subject matter lists (geography, history, biological, technological)
  • Word type lists (nouns, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions)
  • Style lists (lists of words associated with Shakespeare, Hemmingway, Lovecraft, Tolkien)
• Images or Music – use an image (e.g., from Google Images) or music to feel into and guide your creative free writing
• Synesthetic writing – write about a subject or topic you’re interested in pursuing, but try to write about it using non-dominant senses. For example, if your topic is candy canes try writing about how they sound or feel to the touch and avoid visual or olfactory descriptions. Another example, if your topic is a Santa Clause parade try writing only about how it sounds or how you would imagine everything in the parade would taste if it could be eaten like in Willy Wonka’s factory.

I could go on and on. The options for writing prompts seem to have no end. The main goal, for me, with using writing prompts is to become more generative: i.e., to write more and to write more creatively. When I use them regularly it usually works.

Craft development…

The last type of routine writing that can support improving writing output is a focus on craft. I learned a lot from Sarah Selecky’s Story is a State of Mind course. I’m not sure if she still runs that exact program, but I think she still offers something like it. That course included daily writing prompts (and hers are some of the best – that’s where I learned the lists starting with a letter prompt) as well as exercises that help develop the craft of writing. Dialogue is my biggest struggle, and if I’ve taken a break from writing dialogue it’s pretty analogous to deconditioned fitness. I’m weak. I need to get stronger. Here’s where daily practice focusing on particular aspects of the craft of writing can be beneficial. It’s doing reps. It doesn’t make me great at writing dialogue, but it does make me better if I practice it regularly.

Blogging…

For me this blog is serving as a bit of an accountability mechanism to ensure I stay on top of the 10 Weeks of Winter protocols, but also it’s about getting back into a regular writing practice and routine. I’m rediscovering the rhythms of the day. When am I most able to write, most creative? How much writing can I do in a day? Can I increase or improve the amount and the quality of my writing with regular practice? It’s a learning curve, but I’m doing it, and I hope after the 10 weeks I’ll be a in a better position to get back to my writing projects that I’ve ignored for far too long.