Category: On Writing

1. Writing is like having an egg salad without the eggs.  Or the salad.
2. Writing is like holding your breath underwater while wearing scuba gear.
3. Writing is like pretending to be Neil Armstrong while Neil Armstrong gives a speech on what it’s like to be Neil Armstrong.
4. Writing is like going to a flea market actually run by fleas. 
5. Writing is like being the guy in a cannon at the circus who’s naked but nobody knows it. 
6. Writing is like remembering everything but suddenly having amnesia.
7. Writing is like trying to talk your way out of getting a speeding ticket — on a unicycle.
8. Writing is like making a mobius strip with a start and a finish.
9. Writing is like waking up and having it all be real.
10. Writing is like being a midget and a giant at the same time — on a unicycle.

It never fails.  If I mention to someone that I’m a writer, I almost always get the dreaded question:  So what are you writing now? 

Usually I give people the short answer, which is whatever I’m closest to finishing, but the truth is a little more complicated.  Take now, for example.  I’m almost done with my new YA book.  That’s certainly where I’m spending the bulk of my writing time.  But there’s also the new short story I started the other day that’s five or six pages in.  I got bit by a story idea and wanted to at least get down the opening, but I didn’t want to take too long away from the YA because I’m currently writing some of the most pivotal scenes. 

So there’s two projects.  But I also have the mystery book I finished a few months ago.  After getting some feedback from some trusted readers, and sitting on the book for a while, I realized that it’s not quit there.  Close, lots of good stuff so it’s not a redraft, but there’s some work that needs to be done.  Fortunately, I finally figured out what I think it needs, and I’ve started on that too.     

What about the copy edits on the short story collection I finished not long ago and emailed to the editor?  Do those count?  What about the questionnaire Simon and Schuster asked me to fill out for their new online promotional efforts for their authors? 

And heck, right now I’m writing this blog post.  Throw that into the mix. 

This is certainly not uncommon — in fact, there are lots of writers with far more on their plates than me — but I’ve come to see it as a good thing.  One of the best ways to be prolific, and to avoid writer’s block or the dreaded lulls between projects, is to always be working on something.  It keeps the creative juices flowing.  

But if we’re being literal about it, then unless I’m sitting in front of a computer typing away when somebody asks this question, then really there’s only one answer. 

Right now?  I’m not writing anything.  I’m talking to you.

I mentioned to a friend the other day that it was my goal to write three books over the next year and got the predictably shocked look. 

“You?” my friend said.  “Are you going to quit your day job?”

“No.”

“But you’ve got a full time job.  Two young kids . . .”

My friend wondered how I could possibly find the time.  Well, it’s true that I have to make choices, but it’s not nearly as hard as most people think.  It’s just writing by numbers.

This isn’t the same thing as painting by numbers.  That’s not what I mean.  I mean that if I want to write four books (and actually, I want to throw in some short stories too), I figure out how many words that’ll be approximately, then divide that number by the number of days I plan to write.  Here’s how it looks in my Writing Productivity Spreadsheet (and yes, I really do have such a spreadsheet, where I log all my writing sessions; if I’m not honest how hard I’m working at this, then it’s too easy to lie to myself): 

As you can see, if I write 1000 words a day, 330 days a year, then I can easily reach my goal of writing three books in one year, as well as tossing in a half dozen short stories to boot.  In fact, as the chart indicates, I can actually write four books a year, but I built that in as a cushion knowing that I occasionally have to throw away all or part of a novel that isn’t going well.  I can write 1000 words in forty-five minutes to an hour and a half, depending on how the work is going.  A thousand words is roughly two single-spaced pages. 

I change some of the numbers in this spreadsheet as a way of playing”what if.”  What if I was writing longer novels (I often write YA, which skews the novel word counts down a bit)?  What if I only wrote five days a week?  What if I only wanted to write two books a year?  Each time I change a variable, it changes what my daily rate needs to be.

A thousand words is a comfortable pace for me.  It’s the pace I keep coming back to time and time again.  I mix that up with the occasional marathon writing day, but the longer I’ve been at this, the more important it’s become to write every day.  I wouldn’t have said that five years ago, but a couple things have happened along the way:  1) I’ve become addicted to writing, so I get cranky when I don’t do it; and 2) As I’ve gotten better at it, I enjoy it even more, so there’s fewer days that I’m having to drag myself into my office. 

Can I find an hour a day?  Oh sure.  Sometimes it’s thirty minutes here, twenty minutes there, but if you’re serious about something, no matter how busy your life is, you can always find the time.

Just run the numbers.

Well I sell all those books?  Who knows.  That’s outside my control.  I’ll certainly try.  But I’m a firm believer that the rate of my success is dependent on the level of my productivity, a truism that I think applies to almost anything worth accomplishing in life.