charles barrow's writing

Pantser -  "A NaNoWriMo *  term that means that you 'fly by the seat of your pants' when you are writing your novel. You have nothing but the absolute basics  planned out for your novel.  This outlook towards writing is often opposed by the 'planner', who knows exactly what is going to happen, when it will happen, and where it will happen. There is often enmity  between the two types of writers." The above quote is lifted directly from the online  Urban Dictionary **  and I post it here because the whole debate of plotting versus pantsing (I might have just invented that word) is very much exercising my mind at the moment. Back in September I wrote about the struggle I'd been having with doing any kind of writing at all, and how I'd employed one of my trusty old tricks for demolishing writer's block; namely writing for just eight minutes every morning. Well, as usual, the trick had worked for me and I found myself turning up at the blank page every...

Some five years ago I blogged on here about a stressful time at work and how it was impacting my creative process, and my writing habit. Reading over that blog post this morning I easily remember the anxiety of that period, and how it bled into every area of my life. Anxiety and stress are like poisons that seep through the blood, affecting every part of the body, as well as the brain. The solution I found, back then, for my inability to write anything, was an eight minute daily exercise. I'd sit down each day and write for eight minutes. It would seem that hardly anything could be achieved in such a short amount of time, and if a daily word-count is all important then that might be true,  but beyond the matter of a word tally was the not inconsequential matter of confidence regained. Over time, an eight minute a day habit worked wonders for that. And I also found that those manageable eight minutes could easily stretch into ten, fifteen, twenty, often without any effort ...

August has come around more quickly than I'd planned for, but summer has finally arrived with it. Although, then, with that comes outdoorsy distractions, beach, country walks, and to top them all the Olympics kicks off and I can hardly tear myself away from the tv coverage. Still, I contine to stick to my eight minute work day morning routine of writing and editing. As stated previously this may not seem worth the while but it's surprising how much work I can get done. It keeps the progress ticking over and more importantly it keeps the story fresh in my mind, and at the forefront, so that when I do get a decent block of time, on a day off, I can really focus in on what needs to be done.

Work on my next book, John Mann - At Day's End, came to a juddering halt a few months ago because my day job became so stressful that I was no longer able to be creative, or concentrate on it. It seemed ironic to me that the very time I needed an escape mechanism, a release valve, I was unable to run away to the fictional world I have created. It was a frustrating time. General feelings of lethargy and distraction were joined by a burden of guilt at time passing and no writing or editing being done. Things were getting bad and there was a feeling of desperation that led me to decide to give up on my writing; just stop, without the third installment of John Mann's story being finished and published. Things really got that bad. Then, last week, I heard in passing about someone who works on their writing for just eight minutes a day, and recommends it as a habit. Just eight minutes? For a fraction of a second I scoffed at the idea. Eight minutes of effort could hardly be worthwh...