One Bean, One Word At A Time
Wan wan coco ful baskit is a Jamaican proverb meaning one cocoa at a time fills the basket
In a recent interview with Pip Williams – author of The Dictionary of Lost Words and The Book Binder of Jericho – she said that she had started with the aspiration to write at least 1,000 words a day. When she didn’t hit that target, she lowered it to 500 words. When she didn’t hit that target, she lowered it to 250 words and then to 100 words a day. She then heard that Virginia Woolf set herself the target of at least one word a day and so that became Pip’s target. Obviously, she writes more than one word a day, most days, but that’s what works for her … one word at a time and two books completed.
People like to set their New Year’s resolutions and then, apparently, 80% fail those aspirations within the first month.
Another way of fulfilling goals is to do ONE THING AT A TIME.
One cocoa bean at a time. One word at a time.
Now, us writers are generally classified as plotters or pansters.
Plotters, like John Grisham, plot their whole book, all the characters, all of the events and the ending before even starting to write their books.
Pansters[1], on the other hand, like Stephen King, sit down at their computer or blank white page and just start writing, having no idea what’s going to turn up on the computer screen or the blank white paper. They allow each moment to suggest itself to them.
The panster mind-set is required by most of us for living our lives.
Under my house there is was long, narrow sheet of corrugated iron and I’ve long imagined being smartened up and attached to my patio fence. After four years of the idea swirling around in my brain, I did it yesterday – pulled it out, wire-brushed it, coated with rust killer, painted it twice and put it up and now it sparkles white against my brown fence. Somehow, I know that’s not the end of the creation. It’s going to be a very funky, arty fence by the time I finish the project. What I don’t know is what that finished project will look like. I just know I need to listen to each idea and impulse and ACT on it. I took the first action and the next idea will turn up … and the next and the next.
The same with the books I write – as I sit down with pen and pad, I have no idea what’s going to come of it … and I love that. I love the surprises that turn up, each day, from the universe, the void or whatever we call that which is bigger than us.
The kicker is that I must sit down and write, just as Stephen King and Pip Williams must. I have written 22 books so far and none of them would have happened if I’d just sat and waited for the ending and complete story to come to me. That’s not how I work and that’s not how life works.
If Stephen King waited for the full story of his first novel to turn up, he’d still be waiting and nothing would be done. Same with Pip and the same with every other writer.
See, Martin Luther King never intended to reform the race relations situation in America. He simply saw that his people needed a safe place to be so he set out to provide that safe place, once a week, in his tiny church. More people came. He had to move to a larger church. More and more people got to know about him. He was asked to speak at other churches and at other venues. None of this did he plan. Just a sanctuary once a week and, from that small idea, the rest is history.
However, if his idea of a safe place once a week stayed as just an idea – he did nothing about it – he would be an unknown person. The fact that he took action meant that the next little thing turned up and the next little thing and, soon, the big thing happened from a hundred little steps.
All I can say, then, is two things:
1. Listen to the tiny voice inside and to the illogical, sometimes, ideas it sends to you, and
2. Act on those ideas, one day at a time.
Soon your basket will be full of cocoa beans. Soon your book will be written. Soon your life will have grown.
Try it, you’ll love it! 😊
[1] Based on the phrase about flying by the seat of your pants.