“If I waited till I felt like writing, I’d never write at all.â€
I woke up this morning feeling awful that I
have not been able to write a blog post for a while. The last one I wrote was
my thank you letter to the master Lord Julian Fellowes, and the one before that
was a film review. I did want to establish a routine however of having two blog
posts per week. Yet, no matter how hard I try to commit, whenever I sit down to
write a new blog post, all ideas seem to fly away and I end up chasing after
them bringing myself to a feeling of frustration and irritation. I couldn’t
figure out how to kick this feeling.
All this changed this morning…
I was on Facebook, which is something I do whenever I wake up…I know how horrendously typical in 21st century…and I scrolled through random status updates and boring posts, I happened upon an update from a screenwriting page I follow. The update regarded a brand new app that is now being sold on the MacApp Store.
The app is called Flowstate.
What is this app you ask? Well, for starters I am using this app right now…the point behind it is as simple as it is scary. Upon opening this application you the writer set a timer (15 minutes being the minimum and around 180 minutes being the maximum) for how much time you want to dedicate for writing. All seems well and quaint until you realize what happens once you actually begin writing.
Curious? So, let me explain then…
Whenever you begin writing, the timer begins to countdown…I set mine right now for 30 minutes and I am slowly regretting it…Once you start writing, you really can’t stop because everytime you do, a 5 second counter starts as all your words, yes ALL that you have written begins to fade away and if you don’t start to write before your words completely fade away…you lose everything you wrote…FOREVER…
What is this cruel software you ask? Why would a writer do this you ask? Well it is called flowstate for a reason…this is a technique to train a writer to simply do what they claim they do…write! Most of the time us writers start writing and then come up with excuses or get distracted and lose interest or lose focus or whatever you and I come up with to simply postpone or delay the difficult process that writing is whether or not we want to admit it. We are prone to getting distracted…it is the curse we writers have to live with. So this app was created by a writer for writers…to get us to write while upping the stakes. You stop writing, you lose it all…all the thoughts, ideas, characters, words, sweat, blood, and tears. All gone into the realm of unknown. So write, and don’t stop until the timer stops…that is the only way you can save your work.
Let me say this, and I admit I tried this with no shame…I tried copying and pasting what I wrote…it did not work. You cannot cheat this app at all…Then again, it was made by a writer…and I am sure that he knows what we would try to do.
No excuses just write…
TIMER UPDATE: 16:55 left on my clock…
What I love most is that without even noticing it, words are all of a sudden coming to me with great ease. I am simply putting words on paper and trying to focus them enough so that my thoughts are coherent and have a certain structure and flow. Without this app’s crazy system, this post would have probably taken me ten times longer to write…Although, let’s face it…this is a bit easier since I am writing my thoughts about this app…
I wonder what I would be able to write when I am writing actual articles or reviews with that timer ticking and no time for breaths or pauses or for recollecting my thoughts. I just have to write. Even when you try to scroll back, or fix a mistake your 5 seconds of fading begin and you have to fight your perfection.
Perfection, another curse gifted to us writers. We want our words, our thoughts, our worlds, our characters, to be perfect…when the truth of the matter is…they never will be, the world isn’t so why should they?
TIMER UPDATE: 12:50 left on my clock…
Can you slowly tell that I am starting to lose my focus? I certainly can…
This is definitely an interesting and powerful exercise.
Back to the point…perfection and why we writers believe we have to achieve it constantly…As I write this I realize that all I have to do is wait another ten minutes and then I can go back reread and edit all my thoughts…and as I think this through it makes it a bit easier to start to let go…
Ah LET GO!
The deeper point of this fantastic yet cruel app…
Writers get attached to their words, we feel they belong to us much like a possession…But the bittersweet truth is that once they escape us and we place them on paper, or a blank screen…they no longer belong to us but the world, the eyes that read them, the minds that absorb them…the hearts that will be touched by them.
Who knew that all it took was this simple yet heartbreakingly cruel piece of code to teach us writers the horrible feeling of learning to let go. If I fail and stop for longer than five seconds…I lose all that I have been writing for the passed 20 some minutes…let go…if I don’t fail and in fact succeed…then I get to keep my work but in the process I would have learned to let go of my thoughts and my incredible, undying, inevitable feeling of needed to be perfect.
In this process, I learn to enter a flowstate and simply do what I am meant to do…write. Maybe with this app, I will be able to write more blog posts…or this could all backfire in my face and I could try to write a few times, lose my work, and grow to resent and hate the app.
This is a possibility…but something tells me that if I continue to use this app, writing will become a much easier process.
I read some reviews, and writers of all kinds are using FlowState. Novelists, journalists, poets, even screenwriters are using this software…
I could not imagine setting the timer for 180 minutes…I would lose my mind…I am barely making it work for 30 minutes…
TIME UPDATE: 4:30 left on my timer…
I should have gone for the minimum for my first time but alas, sometimes my ego gets the best of me…
I am simply rambling now which is not at all how I want a rather deep blog post about perfection, writing, and letting go to end but alas…this is what happens when one has three minutes left on the timer.
No, no, I will try to end this with a proper conclusion…
Let’s see…
Ok!
Got it.
To say that I am a writer that is always focused and always writing would be a lie. Was I once a disciplined writer? Yes, but I lost this discipline as soon as I finished my Master’s Program. Let’s face it, no one was holding me accountable.
But now that has changed. FlowState is holding me not accountable, but holding me hostage…the ransom? My words…Write for the time you set, and I will let you go…fail to do so…you pay a heavy price…you lose everything…
TIMER UPDATE: 30 seconds left…
We are almost home!
So, all in all, I truly hope that my rambling hasn’t bored you but let me tell you that what is has done is make me slowly fall back in love with writing.
TIME!!!
Success! I get to keep my work and let you go!
FlowState is $14.99 on the MacApp Store and I HIGHLY recommend it.
Keep Writing!
