Finding it hard to sit down and actually write? Trick yourself.

Guest blogger, Sarah Salway

When I started to write fiction, my children were very small. The idea of not writing in every spare five minutes I could find, or even wasting precious writing time on the sort of ritual involving lengthy sharpening of pencils I heard one famous writer describe, seemed unbelievable.

Admittedly, although this was less than ten years ago, it was before broadband, and twitter, and facebook, and great websites like this one. Which is why I have this ‘anonymous’ quote by my desk, ‘Being a good writer is 3% talent, 97% not being distracted by the internet.’ It’s not that I don’t love what I’m doing; just ten minutes after settling down to writing I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing, but I do seem to need a lot of circling and tea-making before I begin these days.

Or I can trick myself. See, I have come to think of my writing self as a little self-centred, more than a little childish but luckily easy to confuse. And let’s be honest, if I were alone in this then why would people have actually developed software such as Write or Die or Freedom, programmes which turn off your internet for a set amount of time?

So if you too are a little like me, then here are some of the ways I use myself to get those words down onto paper.

Keep a daily wordcount. Depending on your own process, it may be 200 words, 500 words, 1,000 words, 2,000 words, but make a pact with yourself that this is the amount you are going to do every day. The secret is not in fulfilling it (which becomes a habit after the first few days) but, because there will be days when you want to go on and on writing, making yourself stop will send you back to the page the next day.

Finish in the middle. Apparently Ernest Hemingway would deliberately finish his work in progress mid-sentence. It sounds daft, but it makes it much easier to get into the work the next day.

Get into the rhythm. I make an individual soundtrack for each one of my novels right at the beginning of the writing process, because listening to it helps me get into the voice of my character and the mood of the book.

Question yourself. After you finish writing for the day, write yourself a question for the next bit of your writing project. Then when you come back to your desk, focus first on that.

Use a mixture of carrot and stick. Put away all the things that distract you—and yes, that includes facebook, twitter, emails, as well as the phone or today’s crossword. Or even the ironing and housework—until you have written as much as you have set yourself for the day. And then enjoy them with your full attention.

Sarah Salway is a journalist, poet and novelist. Her novels include Something Beginning With (The ABCs of Love in the US) and Getting the Picture (Ballantine). She is currently the RLF Fellow at the London School of Economics, and lives in London with her family. She is trying not to spend so much time on the internet these days.

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