I’m finicky about how I write. I need good lighting, a decent keyboard and a good space to work in with no distractions and no interruptions. For years I argued with myself about this, trying to talk myself into writing under bad conditions. Then I finally gave in and bought a folding table, folding chair, and floor lamp. The day I first used my floor lamp I cranked out one of these essays. No amount of self-motivation talk worked to get me over the hurdle — all it took was a floor lamp instead of the crappy overhead light. With the right setup I did more in a month than I had in years.
This goes against all the self-help advice you have read. You know the formula: The author describes a hopeless situation, then tells you how Oprah or someone managed to overcome that so what’s your excuse. What they leave out is how many people were unable to overcome those obstacles and thus you have never heard of them. You don’t get extra credit for doing it the hard way. Do you care what drugs your favorite team’s players took to win the Super Bowl? Neither does anyone else. You know what you need, and if you don’t know, find out. I discovered, much to my surprise, that listening to some kinds of music helps me write. So I do that now.
Yes, Liam, we all know that Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 in the basement of the library at 10 cents per half hour with typewriters pounding away all around him. If you can do that, great. But I can’t, and neither can most people. Don’t let the lack of a set of earplugs ruin your day and your life, by letting work that could be done not get done. Do what you have to do to get it done.
There are no merit badges, no points in heaven, no sainthood for making yourself suffer. Just go ahead and do it the way you, you uniquely, have to do it. If you need a frothy mug of cocoa with the little marshmallows, not the cheap ones that are hard as rocks but the good ones that get nice and gooey, in the blue mug, the one you ganked from your roommate because it feels so nice in your hands, and to listen to techno remixes of Popcorn in order to write your killer app, then so be it. Make that your routine. No one will know what it took if the work is good, and no will care or even know what your excuse is if it isn’t. As the author Harry Crews said, do what you have to do to get where you need to go.