BACK
What I’ve Gotten Out of Fresh Developments (So Far)
At the very start of the process of writing this play, I was given the privilege of having a session with a dramaturg by Proudly Asian Theatre (PAT). The session was meant to help me expand my piece from a pitch (about 60 words) to a play (50 - 60 pages), ready for PAT’s playreading event Fresh Off the Page.
I went into the session ready to talk about the art of writing (Concepts! Themes! Ideas!). Instead, I walked away with a piece of advice on the craft of writing. This is it:
Have a writing routine.
It is the best piece of advice I’ve ever been given, that I have actually learnt from (so far).
I am what my husband calls “full of chaotic energy.” I am prone to changing my mind, I get bored easily, I have problems making simple choices. Writing was something I did when I felt like it – when an idea strikes, when I can’t sleep, when I have the time, and so forth. I had never really bothered with a routine, because I thought that it wouldn’t affect the actual quality of the writing. Uninspired writing is worse than no writing at all!
Earlier this year, as I was struggling to write the previous draft of the work, I decided to give it a go. I came up with a simple series of tasks to perform to prepare myself to write.
It goes like this:
1. Make a hot beverage.
2. Have a cigarette with hot beverage. This is an optional step – I stopped doing it a few
months ago.
3. Sit at my designated writing spot.
4. Choose writing music. I’ve made a playlist of my favourite bits of music I’ve listened to while
writing this play – playlist above.
5. Write.
It works for me in the way that sleep hygiene works for some people – having a series of actions to perform before going to sleep primes the brain to be more ready to go to sleep. Same goes for your writing hygiene.
There is a second half to the piece of advice – the part so easily left out. It is one I had to figure out myself. It is:
Stick to it.
Sleep hygiene needs you to maintain a routine over a long period of time for it to work. A routine is that it only works if you’re consistent, and it requires you to put in the effort. Having a writing routine that can be easily slotted into my daily routine might work – but if my daily routine suffers, then the whole thing falls apart.
It surprised me how well the routine worked – as it turns out, uninspired writing is much, much better than no writing at all. You can always edit later! The most important step of the routine is the final step:
Write.