Q: How do I finish my writing project?

A very clear prescription for creative recovery

Summer is coming! The first time wearing shorts, the deep craving for chips and dip, the overflowing trash cans in Prospect Park, and the erotic long patches of sunny sidewalk between buildings are all abundantly clear indicators of the season’s change. For writer friends in my MFA program and spread out around the country, these longer spring days often mean talk of planned summer projects starts to percolate. “I want to start a novel this summer” or “I want to finish that novel this summer” or “I want to actually put some serious hours in.”

We spend a lot of time talking about what our writing goals are and a little less time talking about how exactly we achieve those goals. That’s why I was glad the anonymous question this month had to do with writing practice. I hope it’s helpful for anyone waking up to the promise that they have a story inside of them.

anonymous q&a

In this section, I answer questions anonymously submitted by readers of this substack. If you'd like to submit your own question, link here!

Question:

I need help with writing discipline. I have set myself up to have the perfect environment for writing and yet… I cannot. Despite deadlines and a genuine love for my project!! Ideas? Help? 

— creatively blocked

Answer:

If you wanted vague vibey messages about how to build a creative practice, you could look to the numerous writings about that all over the internet. Because you came to me, I’m going to give you an exact prescription for creative recovery and finishing that project that you love. We can’t control when that mystical straight-from-the-soul inspiration will strike but we can very clearly control how available we make ourselves to actually being there sitting at the page when it does come.

For one month, engage with your project for ten minutes per day. Don’t tell anyone about it. If you can, stop talking about your project all together. For that ten minutes, turn off your phone and turn off notifications on your laptop. You can write words, you can write character profiles or outline. You cannot research for the project. Research is a writer’s elaborate form of procrastination. You can do it outside of those ten minutes of writing time. Keep track of the days that you write. You can make marks on a calendar or fill a mason jar with marbles. In that month, you can skip one day but try not to skip more than one day at a time.

After that month, extend the time. Set a weekly goal for the hours you are going to spend working on your project. Start with a goal that seems easy like two hours a week. Only increase the goal if you can do a few weeks in a row of that goal. You can mess up for a week but always return the week after, either by shortening the writing time goal or just trying at the same goal again. During the time you have allotted to complete your project, follow Neil Gaiman’s rule— you can either do nothing or you can write.

I’m curious about the “I cannot” in your question. Can you physically not write any words or are you disappointed that Good Words aren’t coming? It is so hard to know if you’re writing is any good while you’re in the process. Set aside the time, stick to it, and trust that those good words will come.

Finally, reward any progress you make. Sitting down to write sounds simple but it involves slaying our biggest dragons of internal doubt and insecurity. Be kind to both your inner creative and your inner critic. You’ll be amazed by what will come to you with consistency.

Okay I guess I said finally but I do have one more thing. If after months of consistency this project feels flat and you can’t find the words, here’s your written permission to give it a rest and pick up a different project. When asked about writer’s block, Olivia Gatwood wrote on her instagram that she doesn’t think it exists. Writing is her job so she writes one thing or another each day. If the novel isn’t coming, she writes a poem or a short story. The important thing is to continue consistently with the writing.

You know when you have a story in you because it’s what feeds that guilty sad feeling bouncing around the center of your stomach when you’re not writing. If you weren’t meant to write, you just wouldn’t have that feeling. I can’t wait to read what you write one day! 

something to read:

I hate to do this…. And be this girl…. But Atomic Habits by James Clear on audiobook is it!! I found it so helpful to heal perfectionism and slowly but surely start getting stuff done. If you just really can’t see yourself getting on this band wagon, Big Magic and The Artist’s Way are two great books on creative recovery.

Thank you so much for reading. I love hearing from you either in a reply to this email or comment on this post. Let me know any tricks you use to accomplish sticky goals. I’m looking for questions to answer for a pride month q&a in June so send me your gay questions here plz :-) See you next month!

about the writer:

Zoe Flavin is a queer writer, sex educator and oddly optimistic sagittarius living in Brooklyn with her dog Sunny. She is a graduate of Pomona College and an MFA candidate in fiction writing at New York University. Prior to attending NYU, she ran Planned Parenthood’s sex education programs for the state of Utah. She’s currently working on her first novel about an unlikely support group.