Your silence will not protect you. - Audre Lorde

Keep Writing: Write a Scene

The idea of writing an ENTIRE story is still overwhelming isn't it?

Well, today I am going to tell you the secret. You only have to write your story one scene at a time. In fact, the most realistic goal, using writing targets used by the most prolific writers, would be to write about one-third of a scene at a time. (Explainer: A scene averages 1,500 words and 500 words a day is a good goal when you are in major writing mode.)

So, today, you are going to try to write about 300-500 words of one scene. (If you have an hour to write shoot for 500, but cut that goal to 250 if you are writing for 30 minutes.) Don't stop and edit. (Too much of this early writing will be thrown out, so don't waste time making it nice.) Just keep writing the content. Sound fun? Terrifying?

Remember: This is first-draft-never-show-anyone-writing!

Grab one of your index cards - any index card. You don't have to write your story in order. (For this exercise, it may be time to move to keyboard writing, but do whatever feels best to you.) Write about 300-600 words. Your biggest challenge is to be comfortable with very bad writing here. You may end up writing the whole scene (because you leave out a lot of detail). You may just write part of it (because you include so many details). There is no right or wrong except for getting at least 300 words added to your first draft.

Later drafts will make it pretty, but for right now, it is okay to just tell what happened. In this draft, you don't have to worry about brilliantly showing the story through all your senses, etc. Good writing will show up in your second, third, and fourth draft work, but right now you need to create that very bad first draft so you have something to rewrite! 

Okay, start writing your story!

I came to explore the wreck. / The words are purposes. / The words are maps. / I came to see the damage that was done / and the treasures that prevail. - Adrienne Rich