What Are Your Rules for Writers?

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rules for writers, writing, writing life

This week in class, we read Colson Whitehead’s smart and often hilarious advice on How to Write. Based on that, I put together my own list of rules. They’re personal, based on what works for me and the traps I struggle to avoid, but I wonder if some of them might be more broadly applicable as well:

1. Resist the urge to summarize. Writing should move forward. Summaries, at least in my experience, all too often are safety cushions against a braver ending.
2. Start with what you know. Fiction by definition wouldn’t exist without improvisation and exploration, but it’s equally essential to ground a story somewhere. Emotions are good starting points.
3. Never show anyone your first draft.
4. You know what, don’t even talk about the story until draft 3. It’s so fragile in the early stages. Volatile, too. Anything you say about the story may well be better than anything you’ve written down so far, and you won’t remember it later.
5. Write the part of the story you’re excited about first, regardless of whether you’ve written it yet.
6. Be flexible, both inside and outside of the story. Write Every Day only works until the first case of food poisoning. Make rules you can stick to, and don’t write drafts so rigid you can’t follow a better idea.
7. Have fun with revising. Cutting a story up with scissors is a good way to quickly try out new scene arrangements and keep in touch with the fearless inner kindergartener at the same time.
8. Write scenes that aren’t even supposed to be in the final version for the sake of getting to know the characters better.
9. If it’s in because it makes you feel clever, it probably shouldn’t be in.
10. Writing in any subgenre has the potential to be literature (here’s to you, spec fic).

What writer’s rules do you swear by?

Writing Update

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writing, writing life

It’s all about getting your butt in the chair, whichever way you cajole, trick, threaten, or bribe your way in, right? The first week and a half of the 1,000-minute goal is overall going well. Here’s what I’m learning so far:

1. Time adds up. Whether it’s a 40-minute blast or four 10-minute nibbles throughout the evening broken up with dinner, Internet browsing, and writing bridal shower thank-you notes, I’m spending the same time writing. Mostly, it even seems I get about the same amount of writing done no matter how I split, which is key.
2. Concentrating my efforts is good. So far this month, I’ve spent just over 5 1/2 hours writing, almost all of it focused on one story. I’ve been through the draft twice and there’s barely a paragraph I haven’t changed at least once. The result? When Andrew read the new version, his response was “I finally understand what’s going on with these characters!”
3. Boredom is a tool. It’s easy to claim lack of inspiration as an excuse not to write. The truth is, every single time I’ve scrolled to a part of the story I disliked, put my hands in my lap, and waited, it was a matter of about 5 minutes before I thought of something I could do to make it better. Your brain wants to be entertained. I bet you a pile of dollars that if you set a timer for just about anything above 10-15 minutes, resolutely ignore the Internet, and stare at the blank page, your brain will have something to put there before the end of that time.

I will confess I’m slightly behind on my minutes goal at the moment, but what I’ve learned from NaNo is that there’s a point near the middle of large goals where the novelty wears off and a bit of sliding happens. The key is not taking a slide as a failure. There are plenty of opportunities to catch up, and given how productive this challenge has been so far, I’m determined to keep at this.

Making Time to Write: A New Approach to Quotas

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making time to write, writing

I have an on-again, off-again relationship with a routine writing practice. I’m good in spurts–I’ve successfully reached the 50,000 word mark in three NaNoWriMo Novembers–but the rest of the year is a puzzle to me.

Many writers do well with daily word quotas, and for about 8 months during my senior year of college, I did, too: 500 words a day, every single day. I liked the predictability of it and the fact that I could feel it getting easier. The first day took something like two hours. Later on, I could knock out my words in under 30 minutes on a good day.

What went wrong was that I didn’t have a way to account for editing. I was obligated to produce those 500 words, but what if I was editing a scene? I might write a paragraph or so, change some words, but a large part of my editing involves playing with order, deleting, and doing exercises to probe into areas of the story I’m missing. An hour’s solid, productive editing might result in 200 actual words entered onto the page. I couldn’t find a good conversion for what 500 words of writing “equaled,” so I fell off the wagon.

I’ve also tried daily writing schedules–15 or 30 minutes a day, usually. I’d get up early in the morning or set aside some time in the evening, and for a few weeks it would go well, until I got sick or had a terrible day and skipped. I’m motivated by goals, you see, but I’m also very hard on myself when I don’t meet them. After midnight, those 15 minutes are gone forever and I have a permanent black mark on my record.

What I need, I am learning, is a goal to push toward that will also allow flexibility. My goal should account for my life: the fact that I have new-found weekend time after quitting my job at the church, but that all I want to do when I get home after class is relax. I’m strong and focused on Mondays, drained on Fridays. I need to break away from the idea that if I can just be disciplined enough, I can make every day feel the same.

What I’m trying this September is a monthly goal: 1000 minutes of writing. It comes out to an average of about 35 minutes a day, challenging but achievable, and I can use weekends to my advantage to gain time in case I need a breather. It’s not quite a daily goal, although if I know what’s good for me I’ll be butt-in-chair at least 6 days a week! I’m currently at 118 minutes, and I’ve been excited to see how much gets done in each session. It’s been nice to be able to choose a 40-minute power stretch or 15-minute bursts separated by lunch with Andrew or a long walk.

Of course, I’ve learned over the years that writing goals and needs change, sometimes unexpectedly, and that part of learning to write consistently is learning when to fight the impulse to do something else and when to listen and adapt. For those who are struggling with a consistent daily routine or word-count quota, I’d recommend trying out a weekly or monthly goal instead.