Yesterday was a good day of writing. The coffee next to my laptop tasted better than usual. The words flowed onto the page without a fight and rereading it was a pleasure, not a struggle.
This morning this did not happen. My eyes strain, tired from not enough sleep as I yawn through the first paragraph of text. The words come slow and when they do they are ugly. My fingers hesitate over the keys of my laptop pensive as any word typed is soon erased. My mind wonders far away from this moment to the future.
The future is bright. I see NPR interviews about my novel and events where I joke with fans as I sign stacks of books. In this future, I have the keys to success and don’t worry or struggle to get words on the page because I’ve made it.
Twenty minutes later the blank page mocks me as I look at my watch to see most of my writing time is gone. I shut the laptop in disgust worrying for a moment that I’ve broken the screen with the force. Tomorrow will be better I tell myself. I’ll get back on pace tomorrow.
For my writing life, yesterday and tomorrow are dangerous. Whatever happened yesterday can have an effect on how my writing goes today. If it was a great day of writing, then my expectation is for today to be the same. Or if the day went poorly the dread of the next day being similar can put me in a foul mood going into it.
Growing up my dad played golf. I never caught the bug and still think people who watch golf on TV are suffering from some sort of unspeakable brain trauma. Nevertheless, my dad enjoyed playing. And he was fond of saying “the last hole has nothing to do with the next hole.” Even today, years after he put his clubs away, he pulls out this little gem from time to time. And he’s right.
Whether yesterday was a bad or good day of writing shouldn’t have an effect on how today goes. It’s easy to let a poor previous day trail into the writing of today, but we should approach each day as a new hole. In a similar vein, a tremendous previous writing day shouldn’t set up the expectation that it will last. Few are the back to back writing days where I thought the work was terrific.
To prevent this from dragging me down into morbid self-reflection, I try as much as I can to ignore the production of yesterday. If I didn’t meet my word count, I don’t worry or stress about it as I know there will be a good day of writing somewhere down the road. If yesterday was a fantastic day of writing, I also don’t let expectation fool me into thinking it can be permanent. I have to let each day of writing be what it was supposed to be. This only happens when I get out of the way and don’t impose my will on how the writing should go.
As dangerous as the expectations or regrets of yesterday can be, so too are the dreams and desires of tomorrow. The worst writing I do is when I am writing at something say: a prestigious contest or what I think people want me to write or to mimic a writing style outside of my comfort for anything more than an exercise.
When I write at something, the work is never my best. I lose the story in my own ego by putting words on the page because ‘I’ the author need them to be there, so people see how brilliant I am. When I do this the writing suffers. My wife reads over these pages and says “you’re using your ‘author voice.’”, which is a code word for the writing falls flat. It’s zombie writing because it’s something dead acting as if it’s alive. It’s hollow of humanity because I am not being true to myself. I am writing for someone or something else, and it shows.
Furthermore, when I am ruminating in my dreams of the future, I am taking away from the work of today. These dreams place undue expectations on where I am now. How fast should I be progressing through the process? Shouldn’t I be publishing a book this year? Going on Twitter can fuel this anxiety when I compare myself to others. Why would what any else is doing truly effect the writing I am doing today? It shouldn’t but it does. Sometimes. All of this takes me out of the writing of today when I focus on ineffective wonderings of what could or should be.
That’s why for me I need to stay in today. Today is the sweet spot because the today’s add up. Too many bad yesterdays led to unproductive tomorrows. But if I can sit down and try my best today. Give it everything I have, then I have a shot of doing the same tomorrow. But if I live in tomorrow, it will never come. Being present is one of the best things I’ve found in helping me get words on the page, which is what it’s all about.