Writing Under Pressure
Late last night, just before midnight in fact, I was getting ready to call it a day. It was almost midnight, and what I really wanted to do was shut down the computer, read the end of Joe Abercrombie's excellent novel BEST SERVED COLD, and get a few hours of sleep before I had to wake up my small horde of children. That's what I wanted to do, in spite of the fact that I had writing to do. Specifically, I've been working on a little side project with poet Ernest Hilbert, and it was my turn.
I did one last email check and there was an invitation from Mary Robinette Kowal to join in a writerly hangout on Google+ for the express purpose of 15 minutes of socializing, followed by 45 minutes of writing. I saw that other friends and acquaintances were also going to be there, and I thought... why not? I can always pop in, say hello, then duck out.
Except I couldn't.
Something very strange happened while I was in that Google Hangout. After the socializing period, it was time to write. And even though I wasn't looking at the interface, I could hear other writers writing. I could damn near hear them thinking. And I felt guilty. Very, very guilty for not writing myself. So, I opened up the document that Ernie and I have been sending back and forth and started punching the keys. Every time I stopped, I could hear the others, and felt compelled to start again. It was writing under pressure - peer pressure. Could they hear me? Did they notice if I stopped typing? Were they writing faster, better than I was? It was... refreshing.
I wrote 850 words in that short window. I won't say they were good words - I write at my best when I can be unaware of myself or my surroundings - but they (probably) weren't horrible either. I've never written in those circumstances before, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Writers are creatures of habit, but breaking those habits every now and again is valuable to the process - to waking ourselves up a bit, and to pushing ourselves a little bit farther down the road and further into the story we're trying to tell.
Give it a try yourself. Write under pressure. Set up a group of writer friends and write in the same "space" together - even if that space is a virtual one. Chances are, all that writerly peer pressure, will be good for you.
I did one last email check and there was an invitation from Mary Robinette Kowal to join in a writerly hangout on Google+ for the express purpose of 15 minutes of socializing, followed by 45 minutes of writing. I saw that other friends and acquaintances were also going to be there, and I thought... why not? I can always pop in, say hello, then duck out.
Except I couldn't.
Something very strange happened while I was in that Google Hangout. After the socializing period, it was time to write. And even though I wasn't looking at the interface, I could hear other writers writing. I could damn near hear them thinking. And I felt guilty. Very, very guilty for not writing myself. So, I opened up the document that Ernie and I have been sending back and forth and started punching the keys. Every time I stopped, I could hear the others, and felt compelled to start again. It was writing under pressure - peer pressure. Could they hear me? Did they notice if I stopped typing? Were they writing faster, better than I was? It was... refreshing.
I wrote 850 words in that short window. I won't say they were good words - I write at my best when I can be unaware of myself or my surroundings - but they (probably) weren't horrible either. I've never written in those circumstances before, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Writers are creatures of habit, but breaking those habits every now and again is valuable to the process - to waking ourselves up a bit, and to pushing ourselves a little bit farther down the road and further into the story we're trying to tell.
Give it a try yourself. Write under pressure. Set up a group of writer friends and write in the same "space" together - even if that space is a virtual one. Chances are, all that writerly peer pressure, will be good for you.
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