Writing vs. Daydreaming about Writing
Daydreaming is an important part of creative writing. Some of our best ideas and inspiration comes from daydreaming. It can be an integral part of the writing process. This also includes the ‘business’ of writing – sitting back from your novel and dreaming about it being published and sitting on the shelves of your local bookstore. This is healthy and can propel your writing forward. However, the dangers of daydreaming are lurking in the dark.
There is a trap a lot of writers fall into, myself included. We start daydreaming about being published, becoming a full-time author and maybe even a little fame. The problem is we don’t stop daydreaming. As a result, our story or novel sits in limbo and never progresses beyond the ‘almost finished’ stage, or worse, never even gets started.
Author Cory Doctorow recognizes this problem, as he gets a lot of inquiries from aspiring writers about contracts, editors, agents and a lot of other writing business questions. But many of them don’t even have a completed manuscript yet. They have nothing to send to an editor or potential agent. Instead of finishing the manuscript they are daydreaming about those next big steps.
In a written interview with Writer’s Digest, Doctorow talks about this common problem among writers. In part, this is what he says:
But it’s easy to tip over from daydreaming to making the daydream the main activity. Once you are taking the time you should be spending writing and using it researching technical questions about negotiating the fine details of your contract with your publisher—who as of yet doesn’t exist because the book isn’t written—you are no longer writing.
Sound familiar? I find myself in this trap as well – thinking how great this story is going to be, the positive reaction from others and imagining the story launching my writing career. But then the story never gets written.
Cory Doctorow goes on to say:
This is no different than Robert Heinlein’s advice to writers: Write, finish what you write, send what you write to an editor. Almost every writer who approaches me for advice is not doing at least one of those three things. And if you are not doing those three things, you are not on a trajectory to publishing work.
You can sum up all this advice in an easy way: If you wanna be a writer, then write!
A simple solution
One easy and effective way to remedy this daydreaming habit is to set daily writing goals for yourself. Make your goal to write X number of pages or X number of words. Set aside time each day dedicated to writing. Or, if your schedule is hectic (like mine can be) write whenever you get a chance.
This way, as long as you are meeting your daily writing goal, you can daydream about being a mega-bestselling, super star author all you want because you are writing and working towards your goal. You are making progress.
Setting up a regular writing goal and schedule can be hard, especially at first. But once you keep at it for a while writing will become a habit and part of your daily routine.
How do you keep your writing on track?
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