If you’re trying to do something and it’s not working stop, just stop.
You don’t have to give up or abandon what you were doing. Go do something else for a bit. Take a breather. Come back fresh and try again.
Often you’ll find that taking that time away, that step back, allows your mind to work on the problem without the same pressure. When you go back to try again your mind has solved the problem.
It’s not all about you. There are other people.
Some of them need your help. Some of them need your attention. Maybe just say hello.
Life is not just work. Sometimes that’s inconvenient. Sometimes you’d prefer to keep working. But it’s not always what’s best.
Take time out with others, or for others. Sometimes that’s what’s best.
You say you want X. You say you want Y. You say they matter.
But you’re sitting on your ass watching TV. Or you’re wasting your time staring at your phone.
If you want X chase it. If you want Y chase it.
You won’t regret not watching TV. You won’t regret less time on your phone.
Get up and chase what matters.
To get to quality you have to go through quantity.
If you want to write something worth publishing, you need to get through page after page of writing you never want the world to glimpse.
If you want to become a top photographer, you must spend hour upon hour with your eye at the viewfinder.
Quantity provides learning.
After you’ve put in the time quality comes easier. But you’ve got to go through quantity to get there.
Stop. Don’t add all the bells and whistles. They’re a distraction.
Instead, simplify.
Reduce it to its essence.
Sometimes adding that extra thing to your work makes it special but mostly it bloats it. Makes it stodgy.
The tendency is to throw everything at it. Everything you can think of on top of each other. Spending huge amounts of time on it.
It doesn’t work. Strip it back. Spend more time on the core of it.
What the core is depends on the work you’re doing.
It doesn’t mean it can’t have style, or personality.
It just shouldn’t be confused.
Over the last number of years a number of books using the same ‘The Girl…’ naming convention have become successful.
It started with the Stieg Larsson trilogy of books; ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, ‘The Girl Who Played with Fire’, and ‘The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest’. That was a series so there’s nothing surprising that they all follow the same naming convention.
‘The Girl with All the Gifts’ by M.R. Carey was published in 2014. Followed in 2015 by ‘The Girl on the Train’ the publishing phenomenon from Paula Hawkins. Movies of both books are out in the next few months.
Then there are the titles that don’t follow the convention exactly but still include ‘girl’ somewhere in there. ‘Gone Girl’ by Gilliam Flynn in 2012. ‘The Girls’ by Emma Cline this year.
Is there a reason for this or has my brain convinced me there’s a pattern where none exists?