On Writing Discipline (and a Book Review on Making a Writing Routine)
Over the past five years, I’ve participated in a writing challenge called “NaNoWriMo”. If we’ve talked in person, it’s probably come up. I’m like a person who runs, eats vegan, and is participating in Whole30, that kind of obsession.
NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write 50,000 words in the month of November. There are relatively few rules: you can work on anything you want but you can’t count words written before November 1st or after November 30th, you don’t win if you don’t write the full 50,000 (there is no partial winning), and no genre/type of writing is off limits. That’s the jist––write 50,000 words in one month.
I’ve done NaNo five times, “winning” four of them (meeting the word count goal). It doesn’t mean the story is done, or content is the best, and it’s devoid of errors. But what it does teach you, in a sampling of one month, how to put your writing before everything else. Social engagements, hanging out with your partner, sleep, watching TV, scrolling through Instagram on your phone, tackling your TBR list, or wasting time on needless research that really just brings you down a Wikipedia black hole.
I haven’t written Great Work in NaNo. The pace is too quick, I’ve had to work full time while doing it, and sometimes if I need easy words that day I’ll do some needless character backstory that I know won’t make it into the final draft. But it doesn’t matter that I haven’t gotten Great Work out of NaNo, I got work out of it. I got the start of a story, and little nuggets and sprouts that will grow into larger ideas. And when you’re crunched for time, you don’t have room for doubt or insecurities to slip between you and your writing like a splinter in skin.
I recently read Paul J. Silva’s book “How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing”. I’m pretty logical/Type A for a writer, so I thought an academic approach to improving my writing productivity beyond November would be helpful.
Paul has a thousand good points in the book (especially if you are trying to get an academic journal published), but a couple stood out to me:
1) Saying you don’t have time is bullshit. Just like exercise, seeing your friends, watching the latest Broad City episode, you either choose to make time or you don’t.
2) Never let a physical object/circumstance get in your way. You don’t need a fancy new computer, or a desk, or a writing room to get writing done. You just need a way to write it down (by hand, through a keyboard, on your phone) and your attention.
3) Find a writing group and go to it consistently. Finding or making community will help keep you accountable, make it more “fun”, and will get you out of the house.
So what about a writer that makes time, has all the equipment necessary, goes to a writing group, and still cannot get as much work done as they would like?
His largest advice is making a schedule with objectives. This is not new advice––many authors I know and love write on a schedule (Stephen King, Nora Roberts, Diana Gabaldon, V.E. Schwab, etc etc) and it seems to be working for them. For me, I haven’t tried this (I personally hate scheduling my time outside of work) so I put it to the test.
My writing schedule is:
Monday: Day off
Tuesday: 7-9pm
Wednesday: 10-4pm
Thursday: 7-9pm
Friday: 10-4pm
Saturday: 10-12pm
Sunday: 10-12pm
He recommended setting realistic time periods (2, 3 hours at most). I wanted to account open days, to see how I spent the time (would I watch TV? Research? Do non-writing activities?). Tuesdays and Thursdays I scheduled my writing group time as my writing time.
I’ve been doing this schedule since December 1st, and it has been definitely, undoubtably productive (barring the holidays). But I found myself writing on Mondays (my day off), Tuesdays and Thursdays during the day instead of at night, and being burnt out on Fridays. Saturdays were consistent but Sundays were all over the place.
And that’s that! I’m going to keep this schedule for a couple months, and tweak it as time goes on. In case you want to read other writers writing about writing, here are a few I’ve also read recently:
Diana Gabaldon, "I Give You My Body”….: How I Write Sex Scenes
Ursula Le Guin, No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters
Thanks for reading,
Mia