Morning river bed writing exercise - Desert Writers NT

Making an appointment with your self to write is something all the writing gurus suggest. It’s nothing new, but I am always astonished at the power of suggestion. Like when I know I have to get up at twelve minutes past seven, I will wake up exactly at that time. Or if I have to be on the road by two pm, miraculously every thing I have to do to get away gets done and I turn the key in the ignition exactly at 2 pm. Self help and writing gurus become millionaires on the back of our inability to listen to ourselves and practice what we know works. The secret of ‘The Secret’ was there is no secret – we all know how energy attracts energy, but we conveniently forget. I’m always telling my students – if you dare write the story you really want to tell, your audience will find you.  How you get it out there is as hard or easy as you make it and as much as we want one, there is no prescribed formula to follow. Many writing books have plans you can stick to, endless exercises to get you in the daily discipline, but what if you want to go off on a tangent? Suddenly you get a great idea for your novel but you have to finish the sixteen week plan and your great idea is lost in the ether. If you are like me you have to allow for a little rule breaking. I don’t like someone (even myself) telling me what to do and as soon as I set up a routine I know I will break it. Ultimately it all comes down to commitment. Flicking the little switch inside your chest to Write When You Can, stealing moments like a child wagging school, or a teenager smoking behind the shelter shed, a housewife reading in the toilet while her toddlers are running amok. In the Write When You Can method you take a vow that in every spare and idle moment you will jot, list, write, collect, investigate, gather; you will steal away, break out of your old routines, to find the writing afresh. For once you turn on the tap and let it run there is no need for timetables, tricks and plans. They are all washed away in the flood of writing.

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