Throughout a writing process, everyone has tendencies to procrastinate and drop what we've been writing on. I'm one of the best shining examples of this phenomena. Strange as it seems, it happens. Throughout my life I've always been trying to find things to keep me on task, to keep me motivated but nothing seems to do the trick. I'd get a writing partner and then just ignore said person. I'd set up due dates and just push them back or completely erase them from the calendar. It happens more often than I'd like it to, which saddens my soul everytime it does happen.
During one of my usual peruses around the internet (I was currently using Google+), I found some tidbits of information from celeb actor, Wil Wheaton. He posted a pic and link to something a friend of his passed along and mentioned this thing called the "Cult of Done Manifesto." I was curious. I had never heard of this manifesto and I decided to look it up. I found out that it's been passed around the internet a bunch to the point where I didn't really care to look up who created it in the first place. Call me a lazy researcher (I only did one google search with about a billion results all with the same thing, just posted on different sites). I didn't really care who said/created this thing, I'm just glad it was made. I saw somewhere on a site from the creators saying that it was written in twenty minutes because that was all the time they had to do it in. Which I think is a great idea. The whole thing is a list of rules/guidlines entitled the "Cult of Done Manifesto." It's a really good list of things for all persons who are in the creative process so it's not necesarrily JUST for writers. Most people have probably seen this by now, but I just want to repost the list up here for those who haven't and as a reminder to those of us who have. I think we all need to print out a copy of these rules at seventy two sized font, and post them in the areas that we write the most (I could think of a few great places for me to put mine). So here's the manifesto, with no further adieu.
Cult of Done Manifesto
1. There are three states of being. Not Knowing, Action, and Completeion
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage
4. Pretending you know what you are doing is almost the same as knowing what you're doing, so just accept that you know what you are doing even if you don't and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you take more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish, but to get other things done.
7. Once you're done, you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as being done. So make mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an Idea and post it on the internet, that is the ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.
I personally think there should be a few more rules/guidelines added to the list, but I think in adding a few ideas of my own would result in a new idea, or rather a similar idea but with different meanings behind it. Hopefully tomorrow I'm going to be posting up a list of my own that has to do with things specifically geared towards keeping up with a schedule, but also of thoughts to help guide the creative process. Not sure what it will all entail, so I guess my friends you'll have to stay tuned and find out. I'll be posting both this and my own list on a page (mine will obviously come later, but the manifesto will be up tonight).
For now keep on writing, especially if it's not perfect.
~N.y. Kamp
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