Yay! Last letter of the alphabet and day of the challenge…

Every writer, and indeed any committed blogger must agree that in order to stick to writing, it is important to have a zest for it i.e. passion. It’s so damn hard otherwise. I feel I’ve always had some sort of zest for writing but I believe that provided there’s a seed of desire there in the first place, zest can grow, so the more writing you do, the more you actually want to do and conversely, the less you do, the less you want to do which can make any zest you had disappear.

What goes hand in hand with zest is discipline. You always need zest  but then you also need the discipline to sit down and write even when you don’t feel like it. I don’t feel like doing anything today. I’ve been sick all week – in bed with flu, probably due to the freezing cold temperatures we’re experiencing here in the UK, but I’ve still made myself write – not much to be honest; the blogging challenge and a couple of flash fiction competitions but at least I’ve done something. The zest is still there, even if it’s just a flickering flame this week, but the discipline hasn’t disappeared, not completely anyway. I’m hoping that I’ll return to normal tomorrow. It’s a new month after all!

I’ve come to realise that most good writing (the first draft at least) is a result of yielding control i.e writing freely from your subconscious and allowing whatever’s there to emerge. I feel that when you think too much about writing, your true voice does not come out.

When I was doing NaNoWriMo last year, the best work I produced was during the word sprints. I’d set my timer for 20 or 30 minutes and write for that time. Usually I’d start off with only a very sketchy idea in mind and often this would develop into an interesting dialogue or scene. Sometimes I’d re-read what I’d written and honestly wonder where it had come from. I think it’s a case of trusting the process and knowing that once you start writing, something interesting is sure to come out.