Don't think

Are you sitting down?

You’ve done done the majority of what it takes.

Writing is more about sitting down than having the right ideas and the right words to express them. Writing is more about sitting down than anything else.

When you sit down and write, something will come out of it. Words will step up to fight the blank page. Some of them good. Most of them bad. Most of it will be crap.

Same with ideas. Most of them are crap. That's the balance. 80 percent of production is crap so the remaining 20 can be something. In fact, the 80% percent of work is work that needs to happen to give birth to the minority good. This is practice.

I have this habit I fall back to when I lose momentum with writing.  When you think about writing, it makes you wonder about that genius idea that you'll write down when it comes. When it doesn't come, no idea is good enough. In fact, if you don't sit down, no idea is good enough.

The habit has a name. I gave it a name so I can quickly identify I'm doing it. I call it thinking in titles.

When I don't write regularly I start thinking in titles. I believe it's self explanatory.

What's wrong with titles? A title doesn't develop. A title is not a story. It's a summary. It's a single point. Usually, when I think about something and I come up with a title first, it's a dead end.

I don't want to preconceive notions for my work. It's not a hit job. I want to think it through along the way. It's a journey.

When I sit down to write, when I remember a story and type it up, it always develops. It becomes something else. Sometimes good. Most of the times bad. But see, bad is important.

I don't always remember a story, and I don't always sit down. What would I write about if I sat down? Those times, nothing gets made. No doors open.

Tonight, just sit down.