This weird thing happens when you commit to writing.
It works like this.
Say you decide to write about a poodle. Suddenly, every time you walk outside you see people with poodles. You’ve never noticed this before! You’re like, ‘Has everyone always had a poodle? Is this some kind of zeitgeist-y collective unconscious thing?’ Or you decide you’ll write a novel about someone studying saxophone in Paris. You go to your neighbour’s garage sale and the first thing you see is a book titled Studying Saxophone in Paris for Dummies. And next to it is a beret and a saxophone. How do you explain this phenomenon? Coincidence? Synchronicity? The universe? Energy? God? As a frothing-at-the-mouth atheist, I don’t know how to account for it. But it happens, and it’s abundant, freaky and incredibly encouraging. I call it the Writing Magnet.
The Writing Magnet is a bit of magic that is created when you set your mind on what you are going to write.
When you commit to writing about something, you suddenly find things related to it everywhere: overheard conversations, graffiti, lines in movies, products at the supermarket. You sit next to a stranger on a plane and they turn out to be an expert in precisely the field you’re writing about. They know details you wouldn’t be able to find out any other way and here you are chatting to them for a two-hour flight! Stuff jumps out of the woodwork. It’s almost like you’ve put on special goggles programmed to show you exactly what you need.
It’s amazing how this works. When my youngest son started primary school, I wrote a column about it. It was a great piece, perfectly capturing the details for the day and my feelings about finally having all the kids at school. When Charlie finished primary school, I decided I would ride to school with him and write a little companion piece about his last day at primary school. As we rode along, we passed a couch that had been dumped on the footpath and graffittied with the words ‘SOFA. SO GOOD’. I came home and wrote the piece immediately, trying to record all my feelings, details and the vibe of that ride – including the old couch. ‘So far, so good’ ended up becoming the theme of the piece, the thread that tied all the loose ends together.
This sort of thing happens all the time. Don’t ask me how.
You only need to have a scrap of an idea. Even if you feel like your idea is a big one, trust me: by the time you are finished, it will be unrecognisable.
Just commit. The Writing Magnet will be immediately activated.
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.
WILLIAM HUTCHISON MURRAY
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But how do you select an idea? Lots of my Gunnas tell me they have many ideas and don’t know which they want to write first. I tell them: ‘Write them all! Write one for an hour, the other for the next hour, then the other for the hour after that. Or write one on Monday, the other on Wednesday, and then the other on Friday. Work on each project for a month at a time. On the first of each month, change projects.’
Don’t like that idea? Of course you don’t. You know there is one project you really want to do. You are using the ‘I have so many different ideas’ line as an excuse not to commit to it.
If you are really trying to decide between two projects – or need to make any decision about your writing – may I suggest you find a coin? Take the coin in your hand and say, ‘Heads, I do A. Tails, I do B.’ Then flip the coin. While it is spinning in the air, deep inside you will discover you are barracking for one particular side to land. When you hear that voice, listen to it. That’s the project you should be doing. Don’t even bother checking how the coin lands.
‘I have so many ideas I can’t work out which one to do.’ ‘I start heaps of projects, I just can’t finish any of them.’ ‘I don’t have a structure yet so I haven’t started writing.’ ‘I can’t work out the ending so I can’t start yet.’ These are all excuses. Have lots of ideas? Choose one. Any one. Have all these projects started and never finish any of them? Choose one. Finish it. Choose another one. Repeat.
No ending? No structure? No worries! E.L. Doctorow said, ‘You only need to see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ The excuse of not writing because you don’t have an ending or structure yet is as common as it is convenient. No-one knows how anything is going to end. That’s why every writer I know writes: to find out. It’s the adventure, the problem-solving and the puzzling that keeps us coming back. Nutting it all out. Blowing our own minds. And even if you think you know exactly how it will go and exactly what the ending will be, it won’t be what you imagine. Trust me.
But if a structure is what you need to get going, good for you. Just don’t let it stop you actually writing. If not having an ending or a structure is blocking you, make them up. Scaffolding, if you will. Then you will have no excuse. Seriously: make anything you like up – it doesn’t matter if you change it later. This will mean you have no excuse not to write, and it will also provide you with an example of what the structure of your work could be. You may even realise in the process what you definitely don’t want it to be. Remember that heads and tails thing? Sometimes choosing a path gives you something to fight against.
It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no-one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.
HUGH LAURIE
Commit. Find time. Or just find another excuse. The choice is yours.