Like many writers who have demanding full-time jobs, I struggle to fit writing into my life on a daily basis. Sometimes I get a lot done in an evening, sometimes nothing. Sometimes I go weeks without writing, though I usually regret those lapses because as much as I love writing, getting into and keeping a writing routine is as hard as it is for other things we enjoy once we get into them. Writing is a bit like exercise — we really enjoy working out when we are in a regular routine, but struggle to get back into that routine once we let it lapse.
One of the problems we all face is that sometimes our writing time looks like wasted time to others. Sometimes it looks that way to us if we aren’t being fair to ourselves regarding all aspects of process. Writing time doesn’t mean the writer is constantly typing during that allotted time. Writing doesn’t work like that. Sometimes writing means staring into space, or at the ceiling, as the writer struggles for a word, a phrase, or, God help us, the next plot point.
In spite of how this writing time may look to others, it is not wasted time and should not be discounted by the writer or those around her. That’s easier said than done since we have a tendency to only count that which we can quantify. Word count, pages, and books finished count to people. Plotting time and simple cogitating don’t.
It helps to remember that we Americans are descended from puritans and other protestants who preached — constantly — the evils of idle time. Writing, however, requires idle time in order to work through the ideas the writer will put on the page.
Consider your writing process and value all of its parts. Writing is a slow, complicated process for nearly all of us. More than once I’ve thought that the reality of writing screws with my fantasy of writing anything quickly. It just doesn’t work that way.
Of course, then I have that spurt, like during National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo), when I set aside EVERYTHING for a month and just write every night. I don’t get enough sleep, everything in the house is messy (don’t even think about looking in my bathroom in November), and I don’t go anywhere but work, but at the end of the month, I have 50,000 new words of a novel. It is an astonishing accomplishment — ask any writer how rare that is, and they’ll tell you.
To get to that accomplishment, I spent a lot of time thinking in September and October. I had to have the elements of the story clear in my head so that I could write them in November. Before I started, I knew the world I was creating, the characters, and the major plot points, but the only written documentation I had from all this thinking time amounted to some scattered notes on characters, places, or actions, and the short synopsis I wrote a few days before October ended.
I’ll write more about nanaowrimo in a separate post. Clearly, it is a writing experience that works for me. The first time I did 50,000 words in a month I had worn myself down so completely that I got two colds — one after the other — during the first week of December, which, as you might imagine, did a pretty good job of bringing all that amazing November momentum to a fast halt. This year, I managed to complete far more than 50,000 words AND stay healthy, though I was still sleep-deprived at the end of the month. I was also so exhausted that I couldn’t write anything for two weeks after I finished November’s writing spree.
One problem I’ve noticed is that since I managed that amazing output in one month people — myself included — think I can replicate it on a regular basis. That’s simply not the case. Normal life for me and most people involves more sleep and more socializing than I accomplished during either of the last two November writing sprees. Writing with that intensity once a year is an awesome accomplishment. The momentum of that month pulled me into and through much of a story so that I was able to finish a complete first draft, which I can now fix at a more normal, slower pace.
Once a year I can do that pace for 30 days without break. But only once a year. More than that is unrealistic, though I will confess to contemplating trying a second month on my own next year. I don’t know if I could do it on my own, without that worldwide nanowrimo energy, but I’m enough of a protestant work ethic girl to think I should try. I should be satisfied with writing one book a year, but admit to thinking that if I can write one, surely I can squeeze in a second during a year even though one should be enough.
After all, writing even one book is an amazing accomplishment.
