It's the age-old question for literary storytellers: how much writing is enough for one day? At what point can you step away from the keyboard, secure in the knowledge that you've put in a solid day's work, thereby entitling you to spend the rest of the evening sitting on the couch, streaming
30 Rock episodes from Netflix? (Oh, Liz Lemon, how I want to cuddle and strangle you at the same time.)
There's no right or wrong answer. In the world of business writing, we'd typically have a firm deadline for a project, a completion date by which we must deliver a final draft to the client. At such times, work can feel exactly like what the name implies:
work. We pound the keys until we're done, no matter how long it takes, regardless of how tired we might be. The number of words we write is governed entirely by how many words remain before we reach the end of the project.
But things aren't so clear cut when we're writing without a contract, especially in the world of fiction. Even if we ultimately hope to publish the final product, either through a traditional book deal or via the blossoming medium of self-publishing, we're essentially writing on spec. When our manuscript is done, it's done. Since we have no contract, we have no deadline. No editor is likely to call us up, demanding to know the status of our manuscript.
As such, it's easy to let these projects fall onto the back burner. That's why so many more people begin novels than complete them.
With no deadline, or wordcount plan, we write only when we feel like it, rather than because it's time to write.
Well, no more.
Thirteen days ago, I began work on my second Clayton Gyler mystery, tentatively called
The Phantom of Mulberry Street. As I mentioned in my
previous post, I completed the initial draft of the first novel in this series,
Coffee to Die For, in about eight months. But what I didn't mention was that I didn't write every day during that eight month period. Not even close, in fact. I would tend to wait for inspiration to strike before I fired up my copy of Microsoft Word, leading to long, frustrating dry spells where I wouldn't think about the book at all for a week, interspersed with other days where I'd pound out 5,000+ words in a frantic attempt to make up lost time. As satisfying as it was to complete a week's output in a single sitting, this method of work left me a frazzled wreck by the time I called it a day.
This is a classic example of working harder, not smarter.
What I now know is that if I'd simply sat down at the keyboard and began typing, the words would have come. They always do.
Woody Allen famously said that eighty percent of success is simply showing up, and he should know: he's been faithfully writing and directing a feature film (and sometimes two!) per year for more than four decades now.
How does he manage this superhuman feat? Easy. He writes. Every day. He shows up for work, in other words. He doesn't wait for the muse to strike. He hunts it down and drags it to the office with him if he has to. Because he's got a film to deliver to the studio.
When it came time to write the sequel to
Coffee, I decided to follow Mr. Allen's guidance. Rather than repeating the haphazard writing schedule of my first book. I promised myself that I would show up at the keyboard
every day. Regardless of whether I felt inspired, I would do the work. And I told myself that I would not get up from my chair until I'd hit my quota.
I always made myself write when I had a corporate writing deadline approaching, even if I didn't feel inspired. I couldn't afford to wait for inspiration. I just sat down and did the work. Well, I'd do the same for the second Gyler novel.
I set myself a goal of 1,000 words per day. That's 1,000
new words, by the way. I'm not counting minor revisions to the previous day's writing, nor time spent answering e-mails, fooling around on
Twitter, or writing blog posts. 1,000
new words per day, all directed towards my novel's word count. If I felt particularly inspired, I would allow myself to write more than 1,000 words. But I couldn't refuse to write because I didn't feel the muse's presence.
Just as importantly, I also refused to accept the excuse that I didn't have time to make my word count on a particular day.
No one has the time to write. But anyone can make the time, if they want to.
Borrowing a suggestion from my friend, the writer/blogger
Nicholas Strange, I began getting up an hour earlier each morning. My body protested, but I made myself get up and spend that extra 60 minutes of consciousness tickling the keys of my laptop before my wife and kids woke up.
As such, for the past thirteen consecutive days, I have written between 1,000 and 1,300 words
each and every morning, at the time of day when my brain is at its freshest and least cluttered, when the house is silent and free from distractions.
It's been marvelous.
Before I even have my first cup of coffee, my day's writing (at least in regards to the novel) is done. No matter what comes up during the rest of the day, I know I made my fiction word count. As such, I'm hovering near the 15,000-word mark after less than two weeks on the job.
They say it takes 21 days for something to become a habit. If so, I look forward to the next eight days and the further progress I'll achieve.
The take-away from all this?
Don't wait for inspiration. Set a target quota, and deliver! It's the only way to get the results you deserve.
-j.
