Twenty18

A writing project that's just about getting to the end.

[twentyx18-blog]

2. This is not a sonnet

A writing teacher once told me that constraint is a friend of creativity. Fear of the blank page is real, but by putting a few parameters in place, you’ll often give your imagination just enough to get going.

So, lacking inspiration at the beginning of February, I turned to convention. And, as it’s the season, I thought I’d try my hand at an English sonnet.

I’ve attempted them before, with little success. But this time I realised why — iambic pentameter’s a bitch. Ten short/long syllables per line proved a little too much rigour for my unruly brain, and after six hours I still haven’t managed to wrestle it into submission.

Which means this bastardised version of a sonnet (a bonnet?) is all I’ve got to show for my efforts. Further proof that Mr Shakespeare has absolutely nothing to worry about here.

[twentyx18-blog]

1. Digging deep

It’s been a tricky start. Turns out, making yourself write when you just don’t feel like writing is difficult.

But someone recently told me you don’t change habits through motivation, but through discipline. And actually, as the month wore on, and I forced myself to sit at the table and pick up a pen, it did get a little easier.

This is by far the most complete, and cheeriest thing, I came up with. (It is January).

[twentyx18-blog]

Prologue.

I write for a living. No, not anything you’d have read. To date, it’s mostly been information leaflets that gather dust in the waiting rooms of doctor’s surgeries, articles that gather dust on the intranets of investment banks, and welcome packs that gather dust on the desks of employees who were once new.

But I play at writing too. And by that I mean I try my hand at writing things that are a little less functional from time to time. Largely poems, but there’s been the odd short story too. And I’m pretty prolific when it come to birthday limericks scrawled hurriedly on the inside of belated cards.

And whether silly or serious, successful or distinctly subpar, I always enjoy writing for leisure.

Which makes it worse that the amount of leisure-writing I do has fallen off lately. Just as the amount of work-writing I do (and the number of Netflix Originals I watch) has steadily increased. So this year, I’ve decided to do something about it.

The thing is, the problem’s not quite as simple as I made out. It’s not that I don’t write at all. I actually write a fair bit outside of work. The problem is I don’t finish anything. 

I’ve got plenty of thoughts, titles and random rhyming couplets scribbled into notebooks and on the back of receipts. But that’s usually as far as they get. Because, like many writers, there’s only one thing that gets me to finish a piece of work. And that’s a deadline.

So in order to get something (anything) beyond the first few lines, I’ve decided to fabricate one. Over the next 12 months, I’m going to spend 20 minutes, 18 times a month, writing. Whatever I like. It could be the same piece, or something entirely new each time. But the deal is, whatever I’ve spent my time on over the course of the month I have to publish here. For other people to see. Well, probably just my friend Emma (hi Emma). But still.

And while it feels a little scary right now, quite frankly, it’s the only way I’m going to get anything done.

Plus, what’s the point in writing (or creating any kind of art), if you’re not going to share it? That’s why we do it, surely. It’s the final part of the process.

So there we go. That’s the deal. I post whatever distinctly-average collection of musings I’ve been crafting over the last 30ish days. And you get to bug me (Emma) if I don’t.

Could be a great idea. Could be a massive waste of time. 

But all I have to do is get to the end.