A while back, I started a quest to read more books. I saw an infographic that said less than two percent of American adults will read 50 or more books in a year. So I challenged myself to meet that goal. As part of that, I picked up a copy of "The True Secret of Writing," by Natalie Goldberg. I've been working on a novel for the last few years, but can't seem to get motivated enough to work on it seriously. Mostly, because I'm convinced I'm not a "real" writer and that only "real" writers write novels. So there my manuscripts sits, floating in the digital ether of my comptuer's hard drive, 18,000 words among all those 0s and 1s and tiny electrical connections while my brain searches for ways to connect the thoughts in my head to the paper under my hand.
I'm halfway through "True Secrets." One of the biggest takeaways I've gotten from the book is simply that if I ever want to be a writer, I need to write. Pen on paper, strokes on keyboard, it doesn't matter. I need to take letters, form words and sentences and write. And I need to practice. Goldberg's theory is not to start with the novel but to practice writing and all that practice will get your creative juices flowing and maybe a novel will pop out.
So I accepted her challenge of writing for 10 minutes a day. I've signed up with a few services to send me random writing prompts, and will use those to log my 10 minute writing practice. These aren't meant to be graded or critiqued, only to practice writing.
I had every intention of doing this as blog posts, but after trying one topic for about three minutes today, I realize that is never going to work. I can't do this on the computer because I can't control my compunction to edit and redraft as I go along. And that is so not the point of this exercise. So I will revert to old school methods of paper and pen and other tools of the troglodytes.
Wish me luck in 10...9...8...
