Ask the Author: Lily R. Mason
Answered Questions (2)
Lily R. Mason
The hard truth is that if you wait for inspiration, you may be waiting a very long time before you commit words to a document. As the saying goes, [good work] is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. While inspiration is often nice, I find that discipline is much more important when it comes to writing. Commit yourself to writing for a minimum of twenty minutes a day and follow through. Most of the time, that will be enough.
Lily R. Mason
I give myself permission to write crap. I sit down, commit to writing for twenty minutes, set a timer and don't let my fingers stop for more than three seconds. Sometimes I sit down "knowing" it's all going to be terrible, but upon rereading, it's actually pretty good and only needs a bit of editing. If your fingers can outrun your internal voices of judgment, you'll come up with some amazing stuff. Remember that no one reads your zero draft but you; you have all the time in the world to edit your work into something you're comfortable with others reading. But first there have to be words on the page.
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