6 Tips to Transform from Master Procrastinator to Moderately Disciplined Writer

NaNo Prep season has begun in earnest. We’ve asked some writers to share their best tips on how to write the first draft of a novel and have fun doing it. Today, writer Lisa Atenasio shares what she’s learned about her writing process… and how it might help you:

Good writers are sensitive people. Sensitive people are often easily derailed by what life throws at them.

Good writers are creative people. Creative people often rebel against structure and discipline.

Good writers are imaginative people. Imaginative people often come up with a million reasons why something is impossible.

So how on earth is a sensitive, creative, imaginative person supposed to be able to churn out an entire novel in a timely manner? With a lot of cajoling and trickery, I’ve found. Here are some of the tools I used to transform from Master Procrastinator to Moderately Disciplined Writer.

1. Allow your first draft to be terrible.

At the beginning, prioritize quantity over quality. You can spend days perfecting a single paragraph, or you can plow through two thousand words in one sitting. The more you stop to judge your work, the more freaked out and overwhelmed you become.

If you get stuck on a plot point, just write the most contrived crap you can think of to get through it. It doesn’t have to be remotely good. You can always rewrite it later. Get those bones down on the page so that you have a skeleton to work with.

2. Limit your imagination to the page.

When it comes to your story, allow your imagination to soar. Outside of your writing, keep it firmly in check. An unbridled fantasy life can totally derail you. It will inevitably go something like this:

You have the tiniest inkling of an idea for a novel. You imagine yourself finishing your first draft, then completing rewrites. You’ll find a literary agent, then you’ll find a publisher, then your book will become wildly successful. You’ll be able to buy multiple houses in multiple countries so that you can finally live out your dream of spending summers in the south of France eating baguettes and fresh goat cheese.

It doesn’t stop there: you’re wooed by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss who are just dying to turn your book into an HBO series, but first they’ll have to answer a series of trivia questions about the book before you give them permission; you get to handpick your cast who will no doubt include every childhood crush you’ve ever had, then you will cast yourself in a role that has a nude scene with Mads Mikkelson. You’ll lose even more time playing out that scenario in your head a million different ways, all of them ending with him very passionately pronouncing that he’s never met anyone quite like you before.

Meanwhile, the blinking cursor on your screen is mocking you. 

Every writer has fantasies of where their work might take them, but the more you allow yourself to indulge in these thoughts, the more your novel remains just an idea in your head. Creating this ideal scenario in your mind where you get everything you want adds undue pressure to an already daunting process.

Also, humans are notoriously terrible at knowing what they actually want. Could be that you end up hating the south of France.

3. Treat yo’ self!

I often have to bribe myself in order to write. I’ll place a chocolate chip muffin next to my keyboard and stare at it angrily as I punch out some predetermined number of words in order to feel I’ve earned the right to scarf it down. Crude but effective.

Sometimes I give up and eat the muffin without having written anything. That’s okay, too (see #5 below).

4. Find your inspiration.

Figure out what it is you want to say. Examine the demons you’re struggling with in your own life, and find a way to exorcise them through storytelling.

What kept me motivated was my desire to tangle with big scary truths. Throughout the process of writing my novel, I found myself making discoveries alongside my main character. I made connections and had revelations that I never would have come to had my character not come to them first.

Writing, for me, is a form of therapy mixed with joyous self-expression mixed with a vehicle to put my soul out into the world. Figure out your own killer cocktail of motivations and then dive deep.

5. Be kind to yourself.

Don’t beat yourself up when you skip a day of writing. I used to get so discouraged when I couldn’t force myself to write every day, and it would lead to me abandoning projects for good. The only way I’ve been able to keep chugging along is to let go of the difficult days and start each day fresh. (This attitude is also helpful when trying to establish a consistent gym routine. Or so I’ve heard.)

Be kind to yourself in other areas as well, because it will bleed over into your work. Instead of stressing about your lack of narrative structure, indulge in something that feeds you. Go to a movie, go for a walk in nature, go skinny dipping in the dead of night. Make sure to take time away from your writing and day job and whatever else is looming over your head to have an actual life off the page. Not only will it put you in a more at ease, relaxed state that is ideal for getting stuff done, it will make it a whole lot easier to deal with the fact that you’re not a famous writer yet. And that’s okay.

6. Take everything I’ve said with many grains of salt.

Perhaps the most important thing I learned throughout this process is that everyone is different. You need to figure out what works for you.

When writing feels like pulling teeth, I do what I can and then call it a day. I like having an outline before I start. I feel freer playing within the confines of a structure than just writing into a totally unknown abyss.

However, I’m certain that there are writers out there best served by completely different methods. People who feel constricted and bored working with an outline. People who get up every morning at 6am to write for two hours (I cringe just thinking about it). People who rewrite as they go along.

I can’t tell you what to do. I can only tell you what’s worked for me, and tell you to try out different methods of attack until you find something that sticks. There is no “right way” to write. There are just whatever bits and pieces you can cobble together into a method that is uniquely tailored to your personality and temperament. Find the best ways to trick your brain into agreeing to do something as insane as writing a novel, and don’t look back.

Lisa Atenasio is a freelance writer and playwright working on her first novel. She has written for xoJane and on her blog, Lifestyles of the Bored and Anxious. She lives in Massachusetts.

Top photo by Flickr user Julie Raccuglia.