Polly Ho-Yen's Blog

If I’m feeling really stuck or if it’s a day where the voice in my head saying ‘this is rubbish’ is louder than ever, I’ve discovered a trick that unlocks writing for me every time. I heard this from writer Elizabeth Kay, author of ‘Seven Lies’ and editorial director at The Novelry - Thank you Lizzie!

Change your font to white and then … just write! Let the red, squiggley lines appear and continue to write. If you change your mind mid-sentence, keep writing. If you know that you hate what you’ve written, keep writing. If you wonder what it is you just wrote, keep writing the sentence that you’re working on now.

It’s amazingly freeing and yet also productive. It forces you to focus on just one sentence at a time and takes editing off the table entirely. The next day, turn the font back to black, have a look what’s there and do a light correcting edit. You’ll be surprised at how much is there that’s usable and that you’ll keep.

When I’m working on something new, as I am now, I find myself returning day after day to my first chapter (as it stands in that moment.) I read it aloud, I skim it, I turn it over and over in my mind – making sometimes minor, sometimes major adjustments. One day I’ll rewrite just a word, phrase or sentence. On another, I’ll just be making deletions. A week on and I might just write something completely new and start my story in a whole new way. And then there’ll come the days when I change nothing. But I reread it again anyway.

I know I have much to do to move the story onwards but I also know that returning time after time to the first chapter, the opening paragraph, the first line helps me to move forwards. It reminds me of the spark of the idea I had when I first sat down to write it and it’s a message to myself that it’s still there with me, months (and sometimes years) after I wrote what I imagined would be the first line.

I find taking myself back to the tone that I set out to achieve, over and over again, and questioning myself as to whether it’s doing that means the writing stemming from that beginning can flow.

Ultimately if I can make sure that the first chapter makes me want to keep writing, then it will hopefully, one day, make a reader want to keep reading too.

I’ve made so many false starts writing this piece. I’m trying to imagine you reading this too much and I’m thinking of some of the books I’ve read recently where the voice is great, strong and funny and I’ve also got all those snippy little things pestering me on my to do list. It’s funny because what I thought I wanted this piece to be about was around ‘getting down to writing’ which in this moment feels suddenly elusive, almost impossible.

Something that I (usually) do is just write. Not question if it’s any good. Not wonder if it’s turning out how I thought it might. Just write. See what comes out. Trust something will.

Welcome each word. Know that I can go back and sort things out later but for in that moment just enjoy the words appearing on my screen, as if by some kind of alchemy. Where have they come from? I don’t question that too much either.

Block out the to-do list. Tell myself that I will just write for five minutes. Five minutes! It’s nothing. I can do that! Tell myself I will just write something bad. Yes, I can do that! I can at the very least write something that’s quite bad.

Talking to a good friend recently I admitted to her (and myself) that if I thought too hard about what I was doing when writing a book then I honestly thought that I wouldn’t have written anything at all. It interests me, this weird hinterland of trying - but not trying too hard, of pushing yourself - but in the most gentle, playful way possible, of starting a journey when you honestly don’t know where you are going, less the best route to take.

All you seem to know is that you must do it.

And so, you do. And word by word, it builds. Sentences stand on each other’s shoulders; they get taller and taller. It’s somehow thrilling. It feels great! Nothing can stop me!

And if I get stuck I remember: just do it for five minutes and make sure I write something bad. Sometimes that’s the only way in.