Last week I got to speak at the UVU Book Academy, which is a young-but-growing writers conference. I unfortunately had to work half the day, which meant that I missed most of the fun. But, I still got to hang out with other writers, which is the main reason I like going to these things.

I was asked to teach a workshop on Overcoming Writer’s Block, and I’ll admit that I wasn’t enthused about that. Writer’s block is vague concept anyway, and it very much falls into what-works-for-me-might-not-work-for-you territory. Overcoming writer’s block is all about habits, and habits are all about psychology, and I shudder to think that your brains all work the same way mine does.  I certainly hope not.

So, I changed the topic to Overcoming Obstacles to Writing.  I don’t think I’ll be able to recap an entire workshop in one short blog post, so I’m going to break it into pieces.  I’ll start today with the most basic obstacle:

Self Control

John Scalzi recently wrote a fantastic blog on this subject, but here’s a little excerpt:

Well, look. Either you want to write or you don’t, and thinking that you want to write really doesn’t mean anything. There are lots of things I think I’d like to do, and yet if I don’t actually make the time and effort to do them, they don’t get done. This is why I don’t have an acting career, or am a musician — because as much as I’d like those, I somehow stubbornly don’t actually do the things I need to do in order to achieve them. So I guess in really fundamental way I don’t want them, otherwise I’d make the time. C’est la vie.

So: Do you want to write or don’t you? If your answer is “yes, but,” then here’s a small editing tip: what you’re doing is using six letters and two words to say “no.” And that’s fine. Just don’t kid yourself as to what “yes, but” means.

Way back at the beginning of my writing experience, I went to my brother, Dan Wells, with a story idea. At the time I’d never written anything longer than a high-school research paper, and when I went to Dan I think I was kind of expecting him to write my story. (Not much thought had really been put into this.)

Of course, Dan said something along the lines of “I’m working on something else right now, but why don’t you write a couple chapters, and then maybe come down to my writing group.”

He then gave me the advice that changed my life: “Everybody has a book idea. Everybody says that one day they’re going to sit down and write the Great American Novel. But the difference between authors and everybody else is that authors actually do it–they write.”

I’ll be perfectly honest: I’m not always the best at having self-control. I still have a full-time job, and when I get home at the end of the day it sometimes take an awful lot of effort to sit down and work another four or five hours (rather than watch TV, or shoot things in a video game).

So how do you force yourself to do it?  For that, I’ll link you to another statement from my brother:

“When you say you don’t have time for something, that’s not a scheduling fact, it’s a value decision.” Let’s look at an example: say that you want to write for five hours every day. Do you have time for that? Of course you do–a day is 24 hours long, and this only five of them. The time exists, and you can use it for anything you want. What you really mean when you say you don’t have time is that you value other things more: you need to eat, you need to work or go to school, you need to clean your house and take care of children, and at some point you need to sleep. These are good things, and for the most part they are really, legitimately, more important than writing; when I say that “not having time” is a value decision I’m not saying your values are bad, I’m just trying to make you think about the issue in a more productive way. What you have to do is look at your time, maybe more closely than you have before, and see how you’re really spending it.

I think it’s also to look at why you write. There’s no write or wrong answer to this question–you might be writing for pleasure and stress-relief, or you might be writing because you really want to be published, or you might be writing because you already are published and writing is your main source of income.  It doesn’t matter what the reason is–but I think it does matter that you sit down and think about it. Figure out why you write–articulate it–and then let that motivate you.  Personally, I have several reasons why I write, ranging from the common (I really, really love it) to the not-so-common (I’ll explain that one another time, maybe).  But, knowing my reasons, and reminding myself about them, helps me get off my lazy butt and get to work.

So, what motivates you? How do you overcome your obstacles?

This was only the first bit of my workshop. I’ll continue next time with Part Two.