Taking sage advice from Hemingway
A few people have asked me how I manage to write something everyday.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure myself I’d be able to keep it up — which is why I started with the modest goal of writing throughout January. To be honest though, it wasn’t really a goal.
Considering how long I’ve told myself I’d write everyday, the idea of setting a 2017 goal to publish all year — three hundred and sixty-five days—just felt like too much pressure. Nah. I wasn’t about to do that to myself.
Instead of setting myself a goal, I dared myself:
Can I write everyday of 2017?
And as I go on, though, it strikes me that, almost without realising it, I’ve really just been following Hemingway’s advice. See, in his posthumously published memoir, A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway wrote these powerful words:
“Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.”
This is basically what I do every day.
Write one true sentence.
I start with one true sentence. I ask myself, “What can I say today that’s true?” And once I decide on something, I try to unpack it. And voilà—we have a post!
That’s what I’ve been doing—and hope to continue doing.
One truth. Unpacked. Everyday.