Writing Tips!

On Writing Endurance

this was made by lizard-is-writing on tumblr, or http://lizard-is-writing.com/post/163766041644/on-writing-endurance

check them out and enjoi

Writing takes endurance. While some people can just start writing a novel and eventually finish it and edit it, having never written anything in their lives, they are few and far between. Most writers need to build up their endurance for that kind of project.

I've been writing short stories awhile. The first time I wrote one and finished it and edited it and all that, it took about a month. It was twelve pages long. But once I finished it, I was proud of it. I had written twelve whole pages. I know that's nothing. It's a five minute read, if even that.

Now I try to stick to under twenty pages just because it gets way too long too quickly. I have written more than a few short stories. Years have passed since that first one. My short stories have been getting less and less short. I've built up endurance for it. It took time and a lot of practice, but I've come to the point where I want to take on a novel, if only because short stories lately have not been enough to get down the whole story I want to tell.

It's like running. The first time you go out, you might only have the energy to make it around the block, but if you do it every day, after a little while, you won't break out in a sweat the same way you used to, you'll become faster and eventually you might want to run farther just to get the same work out. Writing works similarly I think. You need to practice and build up that endurance. Take on small projects until eventually you feel like you need something larger.