A week or two ago, my friend Nate had an excellent writing suggestion. We were talking over the perennial “How do you write consistently?” question, which has many answers from “Just do it you slacker,” to “I don’t, I wait on my muse.”
Anyway, although I’ve been on a good kick lately, I’m always looking for ways to get more consistent. What Nate mentioned was a writing journal. Now this is not a journal where you blather about your genius, writing reams of deathless prose about your work. Writing too much in the journal would kind of defeat the point of getting stuff done.
The writing journal is intended to help you record 1) what you did, and most importantly 2) what and when you’re going to write next. That second part has been the most interesting and helpful part. When I finish a writing session, the last thing I do before cracking open that bottle of homebrew is to set a date and time when I’ll write next.
I’ve been using a simple format, four or five lines at most:
5/19 (Saturday) 1 hr, evening Plan: Edit through end of chapter with Nicolae. Get Kyle to his next destination. Result: Finished up through Kyle’s full chapter. Stopped on pg. 169.
Actually putting a plan down on paper makes it easier to do for me when the time comes around. I’ve still missed a couple sessions, and that gets written into the journal too, but primarily it keeps me thinking about what’s next, and that’s always a good thing.