Wait, don’t click away yet! This is a really good genuine tip, I promise! Without this tip you won’t be able to accomplish the #1 writing rule.
I’m not saying ‘limit yourself’ as in ‘limit your imagination’ or ‘limit how good your are/can be’.
No.
I mean – Limit Yourself.
Give yourself a SET TIME.
A certain amount of pages.
A minimum (and maximum!) daily word count.
Set. A. Limit. (you can make it the sky if you want!)
Trust me, with this tip you will be able to achieve the #1 writing rule of WRITE EVERY DAY.
Cause, let’s face it – writing every day sounds easy enough (you know, even getting a few words down on the page is good work), but what about when we’re reeeeeally tired? Or, we’ve got too much laundry to do? Or the ideas just aren’t coming?
Well, if you LIMIT YOURSELF – telling yourself that you’ll only write for 20 minutes a day, or 1 page a day, or 500 words a day – then suddenly, that daunting task of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys) becomes a doable feat.
Even is you only write for 5 minutes, or a single sentence, that’s something and it keeps the momentum going so that when the muse strikes – it will strike a lot sooner and more often if you’ve kept up the daily habit.
Also though – limit yourself on stopping after reaching your maximum word count, page number, time limit. You’ll get a lot more done if you write a little something every day then if you burn out in one intense night (just like with working out, eating right, praying daily or any other habit).
So – let’s make it a HABIT and remember – WRITE DAILY – LIMIT YO’ SELF! đ
When the Devil Calls Your Name is a brilliant tvN 2019 K-Drama inspired by the 18th century German play Faust starring Jung Kyung Ho and Park Sung Woong as the Devil.
First off, itâs really an awesome drama. If you havenât seen it, you really should go watch it over on Viki right now. Seriously, pause reading this and go over and watch it right now, if you donât want to be spoiled.
If you donât mind spoilers, then please join me for episode 1 of Hereâs What I Wouldâve DoneâŚ
Now, I know youâre thinking, âBut, you just said it was brilliant. Why would you wanna change anything about it?â Because, it was brilliant – for the first 14 episodes. Itâs only the last 2 that I would change as those were, to be honest, a real mess.
The first 14 episodes followed Jung Kyung Ho, or as he will be referred to in this post as Devil Guy (even though he wasnât the devil, he was the guy that sold his soul to the devil, but thatâs just my nickname for him, ok!), an old washed up musician who sold his soul to the devil for youth, fame and fortune, but when the Devil, Park Sung Woong, comes to collect he tries to re-neg on the deal in any way that he can.
In the beginning, the Devil tells him that if he re-negs on the deal he will go back to his life before, where he is old, poor and alone, and that everyone whoâs life he touched on account of the deal will revert back to their original paths as well. This freaks Devil guy out and he instead promises to find the Devil an A-grade soul to replace his.
That’s when the rest of the story really kicks off as he finds a young, talented, down on her luck, nice girl whom he believes has that A-grade soul that he’s after. He fosters her music career all the while trying to figure out how to get her to sign a soul contract. But, something unexpected happens. He starts to like her. Not necessarily in that romantic way, (although there were some scenes that made me thinkâŚ) but in that âthis is a really nice person that I like as a human beingâ kind of way. So, he starts to try to think of new ways to wiggle out of his own wretched soul contract – but itâs all for naught.
I wonât spoil the rest of the plot – Iâll just jump right into what I wouldâve done.
I wouldâve ended the series where the only way out of the contract was for him to go back to being that poor, washed up, alone, has-been, that he had been before. The Devil had said that THAT was an option.
How inspiring would it have been to have the show end where he is able to change his past, undo this great mistake of selling his soul to the devil out of despair, and embrace his life as it was, saving the people that he cared about (spoiler alert he knew the A-grade girl back when he was an old washed up has-been) and living out the remainder of his days quietly and goodly, turning everyone that he met away from the empty temptations of the Devil. It wouldâve turned it into Faust meets Charles Dickensâs A Christmas Carol.
(incidentally this is my favorite version of A Christmas Carol from 1997 starring Tim Curry)
The show didnât end that way. It kindâve ended in a way that was like âso, yeah, you know even if you sell your soul, sometimes it can just come back to you.â
Oh, ok. Then – what was the point of all the pain, drama? Why did you put us, the audience, through the ringer if the solution in the end was just, âyou know, someday youâll be fine.â?
I still loved the show, it was brilliant – the first 14 episodes, the last 2, as Iâve said, were a mess. Therefore, in my opinion, the show wouldâve been a lot better if the solution in the end had been to reverse the deal, give up all of the money, youth and fame, to live and die a normal life – a better life, as a better person.
Writer OUT
PS – The soundtrack is absolutely amazing! Here’s one of my favorite songs.
A Writers View 