Productivity

“You must write.”- Heinlein’s Rules for writing, Rule One.

“How can you edit that which has not been written?”- Aaron Ritchey

I got a lot of conflicting advice during the writer’s conference, but one of the things that everyone seemed to agree on concerned Heinlein’s first rule for writing. It’s sublime in its simplicity, but authors agree that this is the biggest stumbling block for new writers. How many times have you heard the words, “I’m writing a novel,” and it was a true statement? My guess is never. At the time, that person was talking about writing a novel, which is not the same thing. Not even close. That’s why I heard this advice repeated in so many forms over so many lectures from so many people; shut up and write. Don’t do the laundry, don’t read, don’t check out Facebook, and don’t spend all of your time in critique groups, research, and all of the other peripherals and trim that go along with writing. Just. Write.

I have a problem with that. Though I think that I understand that idea, and even agree with it on principle, this approach just doesn’t seem to work for me. Sure, I can put words on a page any time you ask, but sometimes those words aren’t any good, and there’s nothing I can do to change that.

“Well, what about editing?” I pretend to hear you ask. "Can't you just throw some words up there and fix it later?" I’m all about editing, of course. “There is no good writing, only good re-writing” as old Hemingway used to say, but I have written enough college essays, bad fan fiction, recreational scrawlings and emails to know when to edit, and when my work is irredeemable. It’s not that I want to be a diva about this, but inspiration is a wild beast that I have yet to tame. Sometimes creativity flows like a torrent. Once I spat out over a thousand words and spent less than ten minutes editing them. It became the one piece that I have published. Just two days ago I jotted down a childhood memory on a scrap of paper with a pen, and it was comedy gold. Other times, though, the words simply do not come. I’ve spent hours pecking out sentences, rearranging structure, and playing with commas and conjunctions, and all I produce is wooden dialogue and clumsy narration. Those are the times when I do the laundry.

In that same vein, sometimes that laundry needs to be done. I’m not a career novelist, but a house-husband and soon to be full time dad and part time college student. I have the lawn to mow, the kitchen to clean, floors to sweep, meals to plan and cook and groceries to purchase, and that's just today. I’m typing this post from the customer lounge at a mechanic shop because my car broke. In a few months I’ll have diapers and spit up and all of the other lovely stuff that accompanies infants; essential stuff that takes time to do. I have responsibilities that supersede writing, which makes it that much more frustrating when I do have the time and I hit a mental block.

One of the things I do to circumvent the creative doldrums is maintain multiple writing projects. If I can’t make any progress on one, maybe I can get some traction with the other. Another trick is to simply keep the file open on my computer and steal a few sentences here and there. Each word written now is on that doesn’t have to be written later, and they can add up. Third, if I know there might be some time to sneak in some writing while on my errands, I go ahead and bring the laptop. Even if you show up to the dentist’s on time, for example, they might have you in the waiting room for an extra 20 minutes while he (or she, we don’t want to be sexist) finishes up with the last vic- I mean patient. I’ve been here at the mechanic’s for over four hours, and gotten quite a bit of writing done.

Hopefully, all of these will help me to get my book finished within this decade.