Deadline Driven — Exploring Rule #1 of Flash Writing
by Michael L. Wilson
Over the next year or so, I'm going to explore each of the six rules of flash writing that were featured in my first Flash Writing column back in the Spring of 2005. To read that article, click here: http://www.flashquake.org/archive/vol4iss3/editorial/flashwriting01.html.
Let's start with rule number one: Write in a time-limited session. This is the most important rule for the flash writing process, and is the basis for all other rules. I like to break down my writing sessions into 10 to 15-minute periods. I break whatever project I am working on into small, manageable writing tasks, best explored in short, limited time periods.
There is a myth about writing that many wannabe writers believe: That you need a large chunk of free time to write. Many believe that you must be retired, have the kids off at school, or quit your job to prepare for your epic struggle with the muse. This is not so.
I am living proof of this. I have a full-time day job as a technical writer, with a 45-minute commute each way. I have three kids, three dogs, four cats, a guinea pig, a hamster and two tanks of tropical fish. I am a Cub Scout Leader, have been a soccer coach, and spend a lot of time shuffling kids to meetings, games, practices, lessons, and, of course, running those errands that prevents the house from falling apart. Even though my wife is a work-at-home mom, we both work hard to keep everything running: getting the kids where they need to be on time, fed, and reasonably clean.
Why a time-limited writing session? Limited sessions provide an artificial deadline that forces you to work fast to get something on the page. Remember when you had a paper assigned in college several weeks before the due date? And as the time passed, and that assignment loomed, and you struggled to come up with a paper topic. The day before the assignment is due. panic sets in. You are blank. Blocked. Screwed. But sometime late that evening, fueled by caffeine and raw fear of failure, an idea appears. A brilliant idea. You pound out a draft with hands blazing across the keyboard, the words dictated to you from the heavens. You rip the final page from the printer, the ink still warm on the page, dash to class, and slam the paper down on the professor's desk, convinced that it is the most brilliant work ever produced by a student in any of his classes. Was it really your most brilliant work? Probably not. More like a sleep-starved delusion, but the point is still the same: Deadlines force creativity to happen.
Once you start writing, it's easy to continue once you have something on paper to work with. I am a procrastinator by nature (just ask Debi how soon before the deadline she gets my Flash Writing columns) and will do just about anything to avoid writing: wash dishes, clean out the litter box, or alphabetize my bookshelves. Just thinking about a new project overwhelms me. To calm myself, I pull out my blue, mechanical egg-timer, set the dial for 15-minutes, and think on paper about the project. I capture random thoughts, feelings, and facts about (or related to) it. From this splatter of words, I generate a list of writing topics, and copy them onto an index card.
The result: a writing topic list that serves as a reminder and a starting point for writing during unexpected down time, or when I find a few minutes to bleed a little ink on the page.
Why 15 minutes? 15 minutes is about the length of time that I can keep my butt in a chair without popping out of it like a jack-in-the-box to refill my water bottle, feed Elvira (my cat), or obsessively check email. 15 minutes is about how long I can clutch a pen and write non-stop without cramping. (I am a right-hander who holds my pen like a lefty, clutching the pen in my fist, with it smearing wet ink across the words that I've just written.) 15 minutes is about how long I can sit and type without stretching or being distracted by something else.
How does this help flash writers? Most people can produce between 750 and 1,000 hand written words in 15 minutes: the number of words in a first draft of any flash piece. But remember: this draft doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough to get started. If you don't like the initial result, take one line that you like from that draft and write for another 15 minutes using that it to begin that session.
The book that I'm writing now: The 15-Minute Writer: How to Achieve Your Writing Dreams in Just 15 Minutes a Day (working title) teaches you how to find those 15-minute slots of time, break your project into manageable, 15-minute tasks, and develop your creative writing ability. I am using 15-minute chunks of time to write the book. To see the process in action, go to 15minutewriter.blogspot.com.
Deadlines are the key to achieving your writing dreams. Setting and getting used to artificial deadlines gives you discipline, helps get you started, and sometimes starting is the hardest part. So write about that project that has bit into you and has not let go and spend just 15 minutes working on it.
Anyone can find 15 minutes, even during the busiest of days and write. And if you are serious about writing, you will find that time every day. So get a timer, set it, and bring your writing dream 15 minutes closer to a reality.