Gaining Self-Discipline?

One suggestion that worked for me, well atleast for a while anyways :toungue, is to set a word count that you need to complete everyday. Start low with like one to two thousand words and slowly build it up. And it doesn't matter if it's good or bad writing as long as you keep writing.

That's good advice there, though I would modify it a bit. 2000 words is not a low word count for most people and can burn them out pretty quickly. Even if you start with a couple hundred words, the important thing is to get words down--and don't quit 'til it's done. Good, bad, stilted... doesn't matter. Words on paper. Every day. The self discipline issue really is as simple as that. Words on paper. Every day. Do it. Or don't do it. There's no magic trick.

For a long time, what I thought was a lack of self-discipline, was actually paralyzing fear. What if I'm not good enough? My writing sucks. People will actually see this! Blah blah blah. You know the drill.

So keep your goals simple. I reminded myself of the theory that every writer needed to put out 100,000 words of crap before he or she would be able to write a decent publishable word. So I went about to write those 100,000 words.

Now I'm a good, confident, and regularly published non-fiction writer. I'm back to writing 100,000 words of crap fiction this year, so that I can produce something good next time around.

The "no pressure" mode of thinking works. Try it!

I had a bit of a self discipline double whammy: I quit smoking half way through my first novel and had to spend nine months learning to write all over again without the nicotine crutch.........Boy was that tough!

My tip for improving self discipline is to remember to take a break every 45 minutes or so anyway to help prevent eye strain from your VDU,; I find the brief break while I boil a kettle and look for a biscuit or two allows me to gather ideas together and write faster and more efficiently when I start again. I work on a reward scheme. 500 words gets me a cup of tea, and that's the absolute minimum I will allow myself to write in a day.

JJM said:

It only takes a brief look at a writing career to realize that it takes alot of self-discipline to pull it off effectively. I am lacking this skill atm, does anyone have any tips to gaining self-discipline?

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It takes less discipline if you enjoy it more. What would have to happen for you to enjoy it more?

Dale

Yeah, about 500--700 words allows me 15 minutes of AW time, kinda like my reward system for getting through it. I've got that self-doubt thing going on too. Give the production muse free reign, not the evil editor one.

Tri

It depends how you define an "effective writing career". I don't think that writing is a career choice as such until you have had some success, unless you take a job as a journalist or work on a magazine. In terms of self discipline, I found that the NaNo challenge helped me because I had a very specific goal in a short timescale, and what others have already said is good advice - schedule in a certain amount every day.

As well as setting a word count goal for each of your writing sessions, I find it helps to be 'accountable' to someone. Having someone else know in general what you are working on and being able to report to them that you've hit your target each time can be very motivating, and also help you feel less isolated as you write. One thread based along these lines that might help you is The BIC (butt in chair) and actually writing challenge. There are also others in some of the genre sub-forums.

JJM said:

It only takes a brief look at a writing career to realize that it takes alot of self-discipline to pull it off effectively. I am lacking this skill atm, does anyone have any tips to gaining self-discipline?

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Routine.

JJ

JJ hits it on the head. Routine. I write in the library because there are fewer temptations to goof off there. I go for two hours, and the muse knows she dang well better show up because two hours is a long time to sit and do nothing.

Re word count, I aim for 1000 words a day. Sometimes I do more, but I don't let myself do less.

I agree. Routine. Habit.

...yep, "routine & habit," and also that age old expression about the hardest thing to do being to get the ball rolling, which really is true. There are days when I simply do not want to write, but once I force myself to sit down and have put in a half hour or so my reluctance/laziness fades and I'm good to go the distance, more often than not. (Of course breaks and days off are desirable at times to keep one fresh.)

Looks like we're all in agreement here. The only trick is doing it, every day, and meeting a daily goal. A word count goal is best when you're turning out copy. A time goal is better when you're researching, outlining or editing. I'd recommend no more than 500 words a day while you're building up your writing muscles. 1000 words a day is a reasonable goal for the practiced writer. Some can write much more -- it depends on your natural writing speed. But 500-1000 words a day will add up quickly.

For a time goal, I do three hours. One to three will work, and if you can do more some days, fine. Remember to take breaks every hour or two for exercise and refreshment.

If you really can't write every day, try for at least four days a week, and on the days "off," even fifteen minutes devoted to your WIP will keep you in touch with the writing, which is crucially important. Letting a writing project go off the boil is often fatal.

As has already been said, making a routine of things is the only thing that really helped me gain discipline. For a long time I set to writing a certain amount (wordcount/kilobyte size, rather than just time spent writing) each day (almost) without fail. When I took a break from that, I really lost that discipline. I know that making a routine of it again is the only way to get it back.

Kudra said:

For a long time, what I thought was a lack of self-discipline, was actually paralyzing fear. What if I'm not good enough? My writing sucks. People will actually see this! Blah blah blah. You know the drill.

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Me too. I procrastinated like the dickens, finding all sorts of other things to do because I was afraid that when I sat down to write it would be garbage. An odd thing worked for me. If I write nonfiction articles in the morning, I seem to be jazzed up to write fiction in the afternoon. No procrastinating, no fear. Don't know why it works for me but it does.

Definitely make a routine and either a time or word goal. Personally, I try to start with at least 30 minutes minimum and preferably an hour. I just had to get myself into the groove again. I got lazy over the Thanksgiving holiday. Although I do try and spend some time on the weekends doing research by reading books I think touch on some sort of aspect in my WIP since I'm doing a lot of world building as I write. Helps that I found a really cool tea shop up in New Hope.

Deadlines. Force yourself into a situation where deadlines loom. I worked as a stringer for a daily newspaper for a couple of years, and it pretty much cured me of procrastination. Now I have enough assignment deadlines to keep me in that frame of mind.

This is so much like dieting, and in that arena, setting hard goals can lead to severe guilt and frustration that can become self-defeating. I agree that many people work best with a routine, but life doesn't always give time and space for regularity (no, Ray, not that kind). And deadlines can be helpful, but only it they have some serious teeth--otherwise, more guilt and frustration can pile up. This is so individual, and lifestyle peculiarities are so different, as a general technique, I'd suggest that one should pick a regular time interval (either daily, every two or three days if one's schedule is packed, or weekly) and pledge to make significant progress toward finishing the project in every one of those intervals. So what if that progress is a single sentence. If it's a really good sentence that moves the story toward completion, and it is forward progress. And sometimes it can take a week to get a sentence right, although this may rightly occur during the editing phase.

If that doesn't work, just strive to add to the accumulating hard evidence (should be good motivation):
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118356

What really worked for me in finishing my first novel was setting two goals. The first was to write something - anything - even if it was just one word every day. The other was to set a weekly word count goal. Mine was 4000 words a week. It kept me disciplined enough to write every day without paralyzing me with fear that I couldn't meet my target that day.

I write for 6+ hours a day, five days a week, with a total averaging 2,500-3,500 words per day depending on the projects. The best tool I've found to work with self-discipline is a simple kitchen timer -- you never realize just how much time you may spend on one task, especially time wasters, until a buzzer goes off. When I'm having trouble being disciplined, I will set a timer for breaks to ensure I don't waste too much time, then I just get back into it.

I also find that having a variety of tasks helps. I keep a detailed planner listing every writing task I hope to accomplish in one day, and if one task does not appeal at the moment I can move on to the next and still be productive. In truth, the key is just to find a method that works for you and to stick to it. Best wishes!

I put itunes on genius and write until the playlist runs out. That's about an hour and a halfish. So...yeah. I like doing that.

Knowing what you are lacking is a good first step. I personally do not have the kind of day by day self dicipline a lot of people have. I am trying to get to one published novel per year. To be this is different than saying 1500 words per day. I feel that there are certain steps in novel writing-- all needed as much as the actual writing of words. R& D--research and development-- involves the non-writing creation of the novel. R& D can be ongoing. An ongoing quest to find out new things to say and new ways to say them.

First Draft, is the most labor intensive because it involves getting the story down for the first time. That is usually the stage people talk about when they say they are writing a novel.

1-nth edit. This is when you hone your story, and language-- it is probably even more time consuming than the original draft.


so, what you are doing also dictates how much time you spend on it, but each day try to do one or more of those things.

I might ask what distraction troubles you most, when it comes to your self-discipline? Is there something in particular that keeps you away from your desk more than something else?

Also, I blogged about this very thing yesterday, sort of: Hocus Focus.

If you have other interests that keep distracting you from your writing, like I do, maybe you could find a way to use those in your writing. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Me, I tend to get obsessed with doing something and immerse myself in it until an interesting new distraction comes along, then suddenly I get obsessed with the new thing and lose interest in the old thing. That's been my downfall over and over. I've had two major distractions in the past few years--one is gardening, the other is armchair treasure hunting (trying to solve some really difficult puzzles in a certain children's book to win a big prize). A year ago I finally pulled myself away from the armchair treasure hunt and decided to do the outline draft of this novel if it killed me. I really immersed myself in it for several months. Then this past spring I got the notion to start a huge vegetable garden (I was selling the vegetables) and then through the summer all I wanted to think about was gardening. Of course I was feeling guilty about not writing. Then the tables have turned again and now I'm back immersed in writing the outline draft, and now it's the garden I feel guilty about neglecting. I'm supposed to be growing lots of lettuce, and starting my flats of tomato seeds for the spring, and I'm not. It's a tug of war and I'm always feeling guilty about not doing this that or the other. And the treasure hunting books always beckon....basically I have the addictive personality. The other day this occured to me...Just by "coincidence" the MC in my historical novel is faced with the hardship of having to run a farm and support a large family after her husband dies an alcholic....she knows nothing about farming, and has no choice but to immerse herself in it, and meanwhile she's always looking, like me, for some monetary windfall or treasure to suddenly appear out of a cloud. So I can write about the very addictions and vices that distract me from writing the story. There's probably a treaure hunt or something in there somewhere too. That last thing might sound really hokey, but I like whatever works.

I didn't mean to get carried away with that. It's just that I'm the worst in the world for discipline. It's just a never-ending tug of war between my desires and my will power. Maybe you have similar kinds of distractions that you could use for fodder?