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| FreeImages.com/Jenny Rollo |
1.
Start early – beat the summer heat. Set your
alarm for no later than 8 am and postpone all your household or admin jobs
until the afternoon. Keep your mind as free as possible before starting work,
and get down to it as soon as possible after you get up. The author Monique
Roffey writes as soon as she wakes up when she is working on a novel; the
mighty J.K. Rowling works in bed first thing.
2.
Set yourself achievable goals. Be specific and
realistic. Can you really take the NaNoWriMo approach and write a entire novel
in August? Seems unlikely – and their word goal is 50, 000 whereas you will
have to craft at least 70,000 to reach conventional novel length. It might be
better to work on one short story, or two produce two or three good chapters,
or to resolve an issue that you haven’t had head space to address before.
3.
Choose the right place to work. It may be that
you have a quiet office in the house (we currently have builders next door so I
am feeling the pain here). Or it may that you have a café or library where you
can work well. Wherever it is, make sure that you spend at least three hours a
day in that place, writing, and only writing.
4.
Say ‘no’. I very rarely tell anyone I am not
meeting them/taking something on because I’m writing – it somehow has the same
effect as saying that you are staying in to wash your hair. People feel
snubbed, weirdly, because the convention is that writing should be your lowest
priority in the modern, speed-driven world.
But I have a range of substitute excuses, usually to do with my
(admittedly demanding) day job, or family stuff (and there is admittedly also
plenty of that). Whatever reason you give, just say ‘no’. Don’t feel
pressurized to fit in barbecues or building a new extension on your house. This
is your summer of words.
5.
Be active. This may sound contradictory, but do
also make time to move about. A writer is not a brain on a stick, and getting
your blood circulating helps your brain to work. There is also a weird
connection between creativity and walking. Virginia Woolf was a great fan.
Ernest Hemingway used to go hunting after putting in a morning’s writing. There
is no need for that.
6.
Read. There is also a lovely connection between reading
and writing. The voice and created world of another writer is inspiring and curiously
restful. Choose the right author – you may not want to immerse yourself in the
work of the prize-winning writer whose book was published this year to wild
acclaim and is writing in your chosen genre. You’re only human. Read nonfiction,
poetry, an established classic. Read like a writer, seeing how they have
addressed the problems and challenges you are facing in your own draft. And
read like a reader, paying close attention and letting the writers take you where
they want you to go.
