There’s always a good reason to not write. Some of them: To respond to the many obligations, commitments, and distractions of life; to take a passive break from them – a movie, TV, the web; to enjoy the company of family and friends; to empty an email inbox that inexorably refills itself; even the absolute necessities – to eat, sleep, etc. There are always reasons to not write – good reasons.
So actually writing, writing enough so that you get pretty good at it – because, like getting good at anything, it takes actual doing – requires a strong will or, as I prefer to think of it, strong willingness.
To get the work done, I’ve found two things to be most critical:
The desire to write.
Creating a habit of writing.
The need to write, the desire to create, is what carries one forward on the enterprise of becoming a writer, a creator, an artist. I take this need very seriously, both in myself and in writers that I work with. For many of us it’s way up there in the hierarchy of needs, right beneath food, shelter, sleep, etc.
To turn that desire into actual work created, I believe there needs to be some kind of habit of writing. When I say habit, it can mean writing at the same time every day or every week… or a certain amount of hours a week or month… or having the focus and commitment (and the lifestyle) to ignore everything else and sit down and write whenever the muse strikes… or even – for professionals – the willingness to write when a job is there or an album is due – and you don’t feel like it. Everybody’s ‘method’ is different but, one way or the other, the time needs to be put in.
So ultimately it comes down to the habit of creation – maintaining it, or developing it if it’s not there yet.
I don’t mean to sound hard-nosed about this. Writing is a really joyful experience, but it can sometimes be hard to get to. Giving yourself permission and time to write can be one of the hardest things you’ll ever do – I know it has been for me. But if you’ve just got to write… remember that there’s always good reasons Not To. And somehow you’ve got to learn how to ignore at least some of them.