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E-mail YingHello, friends. I have a confession to make: I’ve always been quite a prima donna when it comes to writing time. When I was childless, I needed three-hour blocks of uninterrupted writing time, minimum, to feel that I was making progress on a manuscript. When we had a baby, that shrank to two hours – still a lot to ask, but with the support of my superstar spouse, we made that happen.
And now we have 2 children. The elder goes to preschool, part-time. The (new) baby is never more than a few metres from me, day and night. Basically, the I-must-have-privacy-and-silence-and-a-warmup-ritual-that-involves-freshly-ground-french-pressed-coffee thing is, um, not working out.
Instead, I’m learning to write like thousands (tens of thousands? gazillions? pity no one measures these things) of women have before me: in unpredictable increments that sometimes pop up when I least expect them. For example, last week I dropped off our son at preschool and the baby fell asleep in the car on the way home. I sprinted into the house, grabbed my laptop, hopped into the passenger seat, and wrote until she woke up. The tally? 800 words in 45 minutes. Yes, I’m still feeling mighty smug about that one.
Obviously, that’s a best-case scenario and it certainly doesn’t happen every time I open the laptop. I still have writing sessions where I fiddle with a single paragraph for 20 minutes, or worse yet, check email obsessively and write half a (bad) sentence. But I’m learning.
The other thing that’s changing is when I write. Now, a few evenings a week after the kids are asleep, I ignore the rest of my life (the dishes, the half-read novel, my lovely husband) and focus. I usually log in to Twitter and propose a writing sprint to anyone who’s kicking around. And off I go.
It’s messy and inconvenient and fundamentally at odds with my circadian rhythm (I’m one of those people who likes to go to bed at 10), but it’s working. Mostly. And whenever I feel particularly low about my word count, I think about one of my favourite Victorian novelists, Wilkie Collins, who was a consummate procrastinator.
When Collins was in the middle of a serial novel (a novel published in a magazine in many instalments), he would turn up at the offices of the magazine on the day of the printer’s deadline. There, he would finally sit down and write. As he finished each page, someone would run that sheet of paper down to the printer’s offices, where they would typeset it and finally print it.
It makes me feel queasy just thinking about it.
How do you write? Are you a Collins-esque procrastinator, or a marvel of efficiency?
Tags: life stuff, musings, Writing
Oh, thank you for writing this post! This happens to me all the time- particularly the obsessive email checking…lol. I think I’m probably more of a procrastinator. Sometimes I’ll have a really good jaunt- I can write a chapter in an hour and be quite happy with it- and then sometimes I’ll run into a snag, give up for a couple of days and fritter away my time on Facebook until I come up with a new idea. lol…I feel kind of bad when I do that, especially if I’m at an important part.
Thanks for posting this!
My mind seems best able to write when my eyes are half closed and the clock says it’s well after midnight.
And I have to be alone when I write, only accompanied by the soundtrack to Pride and Prejudice!
Thanks for the great post!!
Since my youngest was born (he has just turned five) I have been going to bed with him at seven or eight, sleeping until one or two in the morning then getting up to write. It’s strangely addictive, but by breakfast time I’m usually awash with caffeine and buzzing like a bumblebee.
I love to start an essay the minute I get on my laptop after it’s been assigned.
btw this was written on my birthday
I am a “don’t-interrupt-me-on-pain-of-death-until-I-am-done” writer. I don’t have a set time each day when I sit down to write; the urge will hit me whenever it bloody well pleases, and will not be ignored until I have written positively everything that I can. During these “writing attacks” I must not, at all costs, be interrupted, otherwise I may turn into a dragon and gobble everyone up, then sink into serious depression because my Thought Train has derailed. So I pretty much lock myself up in my room with tons of soundtracks, lots of chocolate, and several pots of tea, and I keep writing until I can’t write anymore. Sometimes these sessions last for only a few minutes; other times they last for days, and I get very little sleep, if any. Writing Attacks are so inconvenient during the school season, but my Muse is horribly spoiled, and I can’t bear to ever tell it no, but I am happily a slave to my stories, so oh well!
You’re welcome, Susanna! I’m really enjoying these windows into how others write. I love that you write with eyes half-closed – so specific! Laila, that sounds wild. How do you get through the rest of the day? Shann, I’m in awe. I really envy people who never procrastinate. And Mara, your muse sounds like a true tyrant. Does she also require blood sacrifices?
*laughs* So far, the only blood sacrifices she has asked for is the deaths of a couple of my characters, but if I start finding strange cuts on my arms or anything, I’ll start to rebel against her tyranny.
Hey – we’re doing an article on this – can I interview you?