Maxim Monday #4: On Writing Every Day (By Knowing What That Means)
Glen battles the blather. Then offers some.
I’m going to leave the intro from MM #1 pinned here for new readers. For today’s new post, scroll down below the photo:
By way of user’s guide, I’m reprinting a snippet from a post I put up this past spring about teaching writing:
“All those rules we’ve all read...any maxims we’ve stuck to our workspaces or screened on our mugs or chanted like prayers...they’re exactly as good as the last thing they helped you get done. Many of them are brilliant. A few of them are true. All of them are wrong.”
Which is just to say, take these for what they are: encouragement; company; one long-timer’s half-sketched map to his own Writer Island, where he takes the air and scours the woods and abandoned buildings and works the days away and may or may not discover buried treasure and may or may not recognize it if and when he does. Hope they help you find yours.
(Also just to say that I’ve eaten all the words left in the refrigerator. Delicious, of course, so sweet and so cold. But every time I open that door, there seem to be more in there, so you should go and check…)
Sometimes I’ll be taking on or adding to or denying longstanding writing truisms. Sometimes I’ll be offering my own.
Hope at least a few of these, over the course of the year, inspire or prod or spur or enrage you enough to get you back out there and digging. If you have thoughts, share ‘em!
And if you do find inspiration here, and you want to show support, please invite your friends to stop by. Or click this little purple button, if you’re so inclined. Any financial encouragement is of course also welcome and deeply appreciated…
Maxim #4: Write Every Day
It may or may not have been Philip Roth who, when asked how novelists get novels finished, responded, “Write every day. You’ll be amazed how fast you have a novel.”
I’m paraphrasing a possibly invented quotation. Even if it was Roth who said it, I suspect he stole it. Which is all well and good and glib and snappy, and what writers do.
And bullshit, of course. And hard, of course. About as revealing as a magician showing you how to make a card disappear by making another one disappear.
Unless we define our terms. The key one, in this case, being right up front. That pointy, nasty little verb: "Write.”
So let’s define that. And clarify:
No one sits down at the computer or with a notebook and cranks out words until lunch and then breaks for thirty minutes and then cranks out more words after lunch and then knocks off at 3:30 for a water-cooler gossip with the cat (because if you have a cat, they’ve been “writing” with you since the moment you started) and then plops back down for an hour mop-up before heading to the kitchen to prep dinner.
(Actually— see notes scattered through these Maxim Mondays about absolutely nothing I say here being absolutely anything. I have always heard that the relentlessly brilliant Ramsey Campbell keeps a version of the above routine. Stephen King reportedly sets the Metallica cranking first thing in the morning and settles at the computer for his daily 12,000— yes, that’s words, and maybe that’s made up? Or exaggerated? Or not? But even if it’s true, that does not mean you have to.)
Here are things that— honestly, legitimately, essentially— can and should count as writing every day:
Writing something every day. Could be a letter you’ll never send, to someone you don’t know. Or a letter you will send. To someone you do. Or mix and match. Could be fixing a single problem sentence in a story you thought you’d finished three years ago. Could be word-spewing a bunch of rhythmless verbiage to get down an idea that feels like a real idea but keeps Jell-o wobbling, won’t quite set. Could be something you know is grand, then coming back to what you’ve done the next day and realizing that what you thought grand was still unset Jell-o, and trying again. Does not matter. It’s the habit— the unleashing of the brain hounds to bark after words that chase meaning up the trees of your…hmm…not set…well, anyway. Write something.
The amount of time also does not matter. In fact, setting realistic goals is crucial to engraining the habit. So your insanely busy and overcommitted life allows you ten minutes, in a car line waiting to pick up your kids, to focus on writing? Take the ten. Don’t beat yourself up for not taking more. But use those ten. Even if it’s just to sit and stare and think about writing.
Sitting and staring is writing. Is in fact the lion’s share of writing. Is in fact when most writing happens.
Not posting your daily word-count. This isn’t a contest. And if it were, the most wouldn’t win. (Unless posting a word-count helps you do some sort of writing every day. In which case, blare it from the virtual hilltops. Just remember why you’re doing it.)
Taking a walk and telling yourself you’re going to use it to think about writing is— you guessed it— writing. Most days, you will wind up distracted and thinking about pretty much anything but your writing. Except that that’s still thinking about your writing. Because your writing is shy. Won’t come when called. Will likely run if you make eye contact. But will keep coming back, if you make a place for it.
Most of all…Enjoying this. Knowing it’s hard. Knowing it’s frustrating. Knowing you may never solve these puzzles. Loving them for being puzzles. For the space they demand and sometimes give you. For the way those precious distracted minutes expand your life outward toward others.For the way they keep luring you back to themselves to play.
It all counts. It’s all real. Keep going.
(Note: Maxim Mondays will be off next week but will return 9/26)