Write for Life / Week 2 (laying track)

Reflection and discussion of Week 2 of Julia Cameron's Write for Life

“Morning Pages teach us that we matter. They perform spiritual chiropractic, moving us into alignment with our own dreams, hopes, and goals. A page at a time, we move toward our ‘true north’ as our authentic desires cue us in to action on our own behalf.” (Julia Cameron, Write for Life)

We are now through Week 2 of our shared reading of Julia Cameron’s Write for Life. (Don’t worry if you altered your own reading timeline. Feel free to jump in when you are ready over the next few days.) It was nice to see some of you share your thoughts about Week 1. Those lurking on the edges are also welcome. It seems like Morning Pages, especially, went well for everyone last week.

Today was day 61 of the morning routine I’ve put in place. I think of it as something I’ve honed and shaped, but at this point, it is simply something I sink into. The creative window, as a whole, has had a profound impact on how I feel. If you leave this book and experience with nothing more than a stronger (or new) morning writing habit, that will still be a good thing!

Week 2 and Laying Track

Perfection and procrastination both come up in Week 2: Begin Where You Are, but I think the biggest takeaway from Week 2 is the idea of “laying track.” With this railway allusion, Cameron elaborates on the “Daily Quota” as a way to work, in a forward motion, on a draft of whatever project you are writing without stopping to edit, re-read, or look back. Her position is that it is better to make consistent forward-moving, measurable progress on a project than to stop and refine work (or work beyond your daily quota). The “small steps add up” mentality is clear in this chapter. By adding to a draft day by day, you build a full draft.

Laying track, as she talks about it, means that you don’t have to know what you will write or where you are headed. You just need to start, show up each day, and write.

“What does it mean to ‘lay track’? It means to go from point A to point B without concern that we are taking the very best route.” (p 36)

“Tracing back over our route, we often find we have come very close to laying out a perfect draft. We do not need to fix much.” (p 37)

“Laying track, the trick is to keep moving gently forward. Each day’s quota builds on the previous day. And so we write our first draft straight through, without rewriting.” (p 38)

I initially had a pretty strong reaction to the repeated assertion that, using this process and “laying track” mindset, you will likely end up with a draft that needs very little work in the end. It depends on what you are writing (the context and the goal), but most things do, ultimately, need a good edit. However, in terms of structure, plot, pacing, and so on, maybe you will find that “laying track” is a good way to keep procrastination and perfectionism at bay and just keep writing.

I agree that keeping writing is a good goal and that rough drafts can and should be rough. If you think of daily work on a project (however much that means to you) with the “laying track” approach, you will keep writing, building, and moving toward a point where you have a complete draft or collection of work. Even without a plan, you may find that this daily forward movement carries you in the direction you need to go and that decisions happen organically along the way. This can be good!

By the Seat of Your Pants

You might be familiar with the term “pantser” as a writing strategy. The counter approach is to be a “plotter.” A pantser ostensibly “writes by the seat of her pants” without a roadmap, outline, or flashlight. A plotter, on the other hand, may have an outline or a detailed plan of what is going to happen and may already know the conclusion before the writing even begins. The pantser will just write “whatever comes next,” while the plotter might jump around and work on different sections with a clear sense of how they fit into the overall framework.

Either of these types of writers could “lay track,” the way Cameron talks about it, but I think the approach has obvious connections to the pantser mentality.

(Note: these terms are ones I became peripherally aware of last November in the context of NaNoWriMo. One of the authors whose videos I kept on in the background identified often as being a pantser. As a mindset, it becomes a “justification” and “explanation” for certain approaches. Many people write this way. I’ve also seen some discussion of “plantsers,” those who fall somewhere in between.)

I think even pantsers need to, at least periodically, look at the work they are doing as a whole to be able to identify gaps, areas that need to be connected or fleshed out, and to ensure that the overall content, tone, and voice fits and works together.

I think if you just start with A and then write to Z without ever looking back, you risk ending up with something that is, yes, a complete draft of writing but potentially disconnected overall, potentially repetitive (because when we start again each day, we often have the same train of thought that we want to mention and think through on the page), and may be full of holes.

Meeting the Editor at a Later Station

I don’t write fiction, but I think the way I write falls into pantser territory. When drafting, I go with the next thought and then the next and then the next. If you’ve listened to my podcast through the years, you know that a birdwalking mentality is central to how I structure my material. I do lay track. But I also am a frequent editor. I lay track, but I am someone who takes the track and continually shapes, rearranges, builds, adds to, layers, collages, and weaves it.

I don’t just lay track and keep moving on.

Maybe I should.

Maybe this is something I need to absorb.

Maybe I should not have spent so long writing and rewriting this post.

One thing I took from this chapter is a new perspective on working through larger sections of writing before going back and editing.

The line about getting sidetracked by a word had particular resonance for me.

“Searching for the precise right word, we find it difficult to write at all. We are hamstrung by our icy demands. Take now: the mountain peaks are rosy at sunset. Rather than write this plain fact, we struggle to describe the peaks perfectly. The peaks are lit by sunset. But is ‘lit’ the word we want? Perhaps ‘illuminated’ would be better. Perhaps not. We argue with ourselves as the sun sinks deeper and the peaks fade to black. Yes, perfectionism is the enemy of creativity, the enemy of freedom, the enemy of a full day’s work.” (p 48)

Ideas and Strategies

In the context of laying track, writing with forward movement (rather than procrastinating because you don’t know what to write or getting stuck trying to perfect a rough draft), several ideas and strategies come up in Week 2:

• Start with the first thought

• Include a sense of place

• “Grabbing time” (try twenty minutes)

• Stop being addicted to procrastination (which includes debating about what to write)

• Follow first thoughts to help get around perfectionism

• “If I didn’t have to say it perfectly….”

• Focus on just the one or two pages, not the whole project (“lower the bar”) (trick yourself into productivity)

• “Blasting through Blocks” by listing fears and anger about a project to see what is holding you back or fueling your procrastination

[I wrote and have removed a whole section on contradictions. Maybe I’ll talk about it at a different point.]

“Daily pages keep a record of my life. I pray on the page, writing out my intentions. I ask for guidance, and record what I am told. Pages done, it's time for breakfast—oatmeal, most mornings—a meal that fortifies my day. It takes energy to write. When I am working on a project, it comes next, the second stop on my writing schedule. Curled on my living room love seat, I touch pen to paper. I will write for an hour, perhaps two.” (p 42)

“On this book, I am averaging three pages daily; a brief essay’s worth. Some days, I have an appetite for further work, and so I have a third stop on my writing schedule, but it comes later in the day.” (p 42)

The Tug of Memory

I can’t seem to pinpoint what game it was, but we had a game when my boys were little that had thick square cards, each with multiple railroad track sections, and I think several tracks were being built simultaneously as the cards were connected. Each person took turns adding a card to try and extend the track. Each card could be used in various ways to continue the track, as long as you didn’t end up with parts of a track that got stuck, landlocked, or resulted in a dead end. A train can’t just end up stalled in the middle of nowhere, after all! I wonder now what the game was? (I know there is a popular board game called Ticket to Ride, which involves train tracks, but that’s not the right game. It was something else.)

Ultimately

I like the concept of laying track (with understanding that editing has a place). I am ready to read chapter 3. I look forward to seeing what you thought and felt this week.

How Did Your Week Go?

• How did you feel reading Chapter 2?

• Did you do all four things: Morning Pages, Daily Quota, two or more walks, and at least one Artist Date?

• If you have started Morning Pages (or any form of morning journaling) for the first time (or after a long time away) as part of reading this book, how is it going?

• If you are working on a Daily Quota project, how is it going?

• In your longer projects (not morning pages), do you feel like you struggle with procrastination, perfectionism, or both? Did you find any of the strategies offered helpful to get around these roadblocks?

• Do you have a strong inner critic that gets in your way?

Feel free to comment below in response to any of these questions or anything you read.

Into Week 3 we go!