More Writing

Well, this is an interesting development...

Not being allowed to read right now as I'm on the fourth week of The Artist's Way course, I'd been writing a lot more these couple of days. I've already written like 2500 words today on my book, and already posted on this blog, and now I thought I'd post again.

Not that I'm complaining much. I'm glad I'm writing more now, even if it's at the cost of reading books. I've always suspected I read too much (gasp!), and that I'd become a lot more productive if I wasn't so busy devouring books.

Actually, I'm estimating the total time I spent on writing these two days was only less than 2 hours each, and I wrote 5565 words in this time. If I spent more time and focus on writing, I would definitely be able to finish a first draft within a month or less. Of course, I'm not guaranteeing quality at all at this point. It's all about quantity. Quality is for editing time. Now is all about writing.

Slow and Steady Progress

 

Well, it's the second day of my reading deprivation week, and so far I'm doing good, though a little out of sorts. I'm not sure if it's cheating, but I am reading writing books, and lots of online articles.

My reasoning is that when Julia Cameron says not to read for a week, I'm sure she didn't mean that lawyers couldn't read depositions, or students couldn't study their textbooks, or regular people couldn't read their newspapers, so as a writer, I'm reading books about writing.

I haven't read anything fiction, just the writing books and a lot of Stumbleupon.com sites.

I'm actually getting quite a lot of writing done these couple of days, a lot more than I have ever produced in the last ten years (in any two days), but I'm still not producing as much as I know I can.

Practice makes perfect though, and I know that I'm still in the early stages of planning my new writing schedule, so it would take some time to get used to it.

The morning pages are something that I'm definitely used to now. I don't think I can do without them anymore. They're my lifeline, and the place I go to when I need to write about stuff. I'm not finished with the exercises in the book, but the simple act of writing the morning pages has helped, and I will definitely come back to the rest of the exercises in the future.

For now, I'm reading to go back to writing... again. =)

Fourth Week of The Artist's Way

I've been working through Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way 12-week course. I've been doing really well with it, writing the morning pages and going for the Artist Dates.


I definitely feel an improvement with my creativity and flow, and I love doing the morning pages, but...

I'm on the fourth week of the course now, and there's this "Reading Deprivation" exercise that I have to do. Reading deprivation as in, no reading. For a week. As in, I might as well die.

Okay, I know I'm being a little bit melodramatic, but I feel like this is going to be really difficult for me to do.

Honestly, I actually think it's a great exercise. For a long time now, I've realized that I'm addicted to reading. I read to shut out the world. I don't observe the things around me, preferring instead to ignore everything and focus on words on pages. I read so I won't have to think. I read so I don't have time to reflect or make plans or focus on what's real.

I've known for a while that my reading *is* in fact, an addiction. It causes me to neglect my other duties and responsibilities. It causes me to be busy without actually accomplishing anything. I've known that I need to cut down on my reading. Cut down, but not completely deprive myself!

I always believe that reading too much is better than not reading at all, so there's no way I could deprive myself of this "addiction". It's not like alcohol or smoking, where the goal is to quit completely. I don't think quitting reading is a good thing at all, so even though it is an addiction, it's not one I would give up completely.

So I always thought that I would just discipline myself to get my other responsibilities done, and I can read as much as I want after that. Of course, that hasn't been working for me so far...
Anyway... the fourth week of the course says I have to give up reading for an entire week! Just one week. Seven days. OMG.

We still have to write our morning pages, of course, and I guess we can read a little, like newspapers, articles and stuff... I mean, obviously, we are still allowed to read billboards and signboards and those kind of stuff, right? It's not like we can close our eyes to all the alphabets in our environment.

So ok, I'm going to deprive myself of reading for one week. Hopefully, when the week is over, I won't have turned mad. *fingers crossed*