The One Thing That Matters for Fiction Writers
And why our brains are trying to protect us from doing it.
I have this theory about the fiction writer’s brain.
It will do anything — anything — to protect the writer from the hard, sometimes painful work of drafting new fiction.
A first draft is called rough for a reason.
The idea that all it takes to be a writer is to sit down at a typewriter and bleed is often attributed to Ernest Hemingway — but it was actually Paul Gallico (The Poseidon Adventure) who said it first.
It is only when you open your veins and bleed onto the page a little that you establish contact with your reader.
Writing is hard. The brain has a protective imperative. That’s what fight-or-flight is all about, right? So it makes sense that a fiction writer’s brain would try to protect its host from having to do it.
That’s my theory, anyway.
It makes sense, especially when my brain is flooding me with a thousand reasons why it’s perfectly reasonable for me not to write new fiction right now.
(For reasons, read excuses.)
It’s a little crazy that some of my top-level excuses for not writing new fiction involve writing other things.
After I learned that a friend earned $5000 writing for Medium in December, I made a goal of upping my game here by writing everyday in January. Just to see what happens.
Yeah. I counted yesterday. I’ve written 77 Medium posts in January. Good job, writer’s brain.
You have seven people to support, my writer’s brain reminds me. And here’s a fantastic idea for a new post. Your new book can wait. This is important. Avoiding bankruptcy is a good reason not to spend your time picking new fiction words out of me with a toothpick. And at least you’re still writing.
(Side note, my brain has unhelpfully become nearly obsessed with checking my Medium stats this month. Work on your story just as soon as you check to see how many fans you have today for the fifteenth time before noon. Fans are good. We love fans.)
