The Writer’s Coin

This is a duality that I struggle with a lot. Am I a writer? A blogger? Both? So today I’m taking a look at three ways that have helped me (and will hopefully help you) balance the act of writing fiction and blogging.

I write for this blog and I also write fiction. I’d like to say that these two things are my “passion,” but I don’t know if this blog really falls under the category of passion. I enjoy writing for it and I learn new things all the time, but it’s more about the thrill of publishing whatever the hell I want and having people read it. Since no one is reading my fiction (not at these numbers, meager as they are, anyway), I think the blog helps to quench my thirst for a readership. Anyway, that’s a whole other topic—one for another day.

Today I’m going to talk about how I balance the blogging and the writing of fiction. I wrote recently about my struggle to find the time to write, and I may go into that a little bit today too. This isn’t about what it takes to be a “good” writer/blogger, it’s about the actual act of writing and getting this stuff done. The interesting thing about writing for such different things is how similar the systems involved in both of them really are. Writing is still writing, no matter what you call it. So let’s get started!

1. Setting up a System to Catch Ideas

Ideas don’t come from just sitting at your desk with your head on your fist, thinking. Sorry to break it to you, but ideas come from living, from reading, and from thinking about the first two. I even came up with a formula for it.

So the most important place to start if you want to write fiction or blog about any topic is setting up a system that will allow you to capture all the ideas you have so you can write about them when the time comes (and we’ll worry about that next). Because trust me, ideas will come to you at the weirdest times and you need to be ready to jot them down before you forget. You’ll be sitting in a boring meeting at work and boom! Great idea. Or you’ll be jogging outside and boom! Another one. If you don’t have a system in mind, you’ll either forget it or you’ll stress your unconscious mind so much to remember that you’ll block other new ideas from coming forward. It’s like email—process it as soon as possible or you’ll find yourself on the nasty end of a backlog. Not fun.

So what kind of systems are there to grab these ideas and record them? Everyone should create their own tailor-made system, in my opinion. Check out mine if you want — it’s just what works for me but it may help you on setting up your own. Remember, all you want to do here is to write/record the idea somewhere that you will come back to and actually act on it later. You can sift through all of these later to see how good they are — for now the priority is to treat them all like they’re brilliant and worry about the quality later.

If you’re keen on learning more about these systems, check out Getting Things Done by David Allen. I read some of it and took away some really helpful tips. It’s basically all about these kinds of systems and how to maximize them.

2. Finding the Time to Write

The key idea here is to have a set amount of reliable time dedicated to writing. The key here is “reliable.” You need to know that the time is going to be there no matter what, because that will relax the part of your brain worried about when it’s going to take action on this stuff. I wrote about this recently so feel free to check out the full post. If you don’t do this and instead rely on winging it (an oxymoron if you ask me), then you’ll never get anything done consistently.

“I’ll write when I have time”
“Maybe this weekend”
“Tonight, if I’m not tired”

Trust me, excuses are plentiful when it comes to this stuff. So just set aside a little bit of time — whether it’s in the mornings before work or even on your lunch hour. You don’t have to be at a computer (though I recommend it for blogging, typing things up — as good as it is from an editing standpoint — isn’t fun), all you need is some paper and a pen (all my fiction drafts are by hand, still). This way your mind can focus on the ideas you’ll be writing about, not when it’s going to find the time to do it.

My schedule is every day before work. I have almost two hours set aside every morning to write and that allows me to schedule any writing projects into those two hours.

3. Standby Mode (or Getting it Done)

I debated what to call this last step because it’s kind of a weird combination of taking action and waiting.

• The waiting part goes hand in hand with reading. Read as much as you can — if you want to write fiction, read fiction. If you want to blog, read other blogs on the topic you’re going to blog about. Reading is where your ideas will come from, whether it’s directly or indirectly. So read as much as you possibly can and when you think you can’t read anymore, read for five more minutes. I don’t know of any good writers that never read, so who do you think you are. Read!
• The waiting part comes into play because our minds are unreliable. You can’t just go out and write if you don’t have any ideas. Like I said earlier, sitting in front a blank sheet of paper isn’t going to help you with that. You just have to be in a perpetual state of readiness. As a dude on MTV once said, “You stay ready, you ain’t got to get ready.” Amen.

Notice of Liability: I am not a professional writer and all advice should be taken as such. I cannot be help responsible for terrible ideas and terrible writing from following these three steps. If, however, you find yourself atop a bestseller list/top blog list at some point, and you’ve read this, I do expect some sort of mention. Good luck out there!

Tags: Blogging, david allen, Getting Things Done, Writing