You’d think that writing would consist of only a pen or pencil and paper or butt in chair and fingers on keyboard. It’s a little more than that, sometimes and every writer that works on a computer has his favorite piece of software or favorite kind of pen. We all have rituals and peccadilloes that help us get into the Zone, where all the best writing happens. We use physical tools to trigger the necessary mental state.
Yeah, it’s weird. Stay with me, though.
On a typical day in the writing life, I might stumble into my home office, where several motivational NaNoWriMo posters and offbeat art cheerlead my efforts from the walls. There, I set up my laptop on the cluttered desk. I notice it’s cluttered, mutter something about fixing that at some point in the future, and attempt to carry on. I turn on some appropriate music (something that vaguely promises a revolution now, or a pleasant female vocalist). Then I realize that I’m thirsty and go put the tea kettle on for hot water. I open up a new document, type an opening sentence and delete it a dozen times, then hear the tea kettle screeching at me.
After I brew a perfect cup of tea, I change up the music. Adjust my desk chair. Contemplate de-cluttering. Survey other projects that are not getting done. Set an alarm. Realize that the fragrant tea is not engraving a brilliant novel on the computer screen–I have to do some chiseling.
But who do I fool? I try to set up routines, carve out space each day for writing; but it simply does not work. Wave a deadline in front of my face, though, and the words wend their way to the page. There are some drawbacks to this reality: the less sleep I’ve had, and the closer the deadline, the longer my sentences become, labyrinthine monuments to unfolding thoughts that gleamed with the spark of fools’ gold in the early morning light.
For good or for ill, though, deadlines are the magic that make me write. This is why I like NaNoWriMo so much; it is no respecter of routines, effective or otherwise. It breaks into my life, forces me to write at gunpoint, burgles some of my time back for a novel. I also appreciated semester’s end at school for similar reason.
The other part of routine that I do find effective is changing locales. My home office is great, but deciding to go out to a coffee shop to write makes it seem more like a scheduled activity. Alas, even with specific cafes I find myself slipping into routine activities and standard beverages that help me avoid writing. So I must be promiscuous in my routine, changing place and caffeine catalyst constantly lest the anti-muse of distraction catch me. The anti-muse and I are old lovers; only in hiding, shape-shifting, teleporting can I hope to evade her!
Fortunately, there are a lot of coffee shops in Lawrence, and she seems to forget them quickly. Hopefully she won’t notice that I’m cheating with a deadline now!
Writing fiction has, for the most part, been a seasonal occupation for me, centered around the month of November when NaNoWriMo happens. During the month of November, I churn out something between 50,000 – 80,000 words. Sometimes that effort spills into December, and this year that effort has spilled into January (I should probably admit that it’ll be February, but my peer reading group will kill me if that happens).
While I’m on my novel-writing binge, I write anywhere and everywhere. The office, the coffee shop, the library, my home office, the back patio. It all depends on my mood. Sometimes I crave distraction, while other times I need a quiet refuge. Certain settings will inspire me to churn out words, while others will provoke deep thoughts about particular aspects of my story. Sometimes I need the comfort of home, while others time I need to escape my cozy surroundings and force myself to experience my writing from a different, and often less comfortable, locale.
Everything I write happens on a computer, and Microsoft Word has served me well over the years. I also usually cook up a pretty sophisticated spreadsheet that helps me track daily wordcounts, character names, scenes, plotlines, research notes, and any other information I may need outside of the actual manuscript itself. I keep Wikipedia open at all times to keep my thirst for quick-and-dirty research slaked throughout the process.
While I’m writing, I often use music to inspire me and eliminate distractions. Wordless musical scores work best: sweeping orchestral pieces, somber trance music, spirit-lifting soundtracks. Sometimes, however, I find that music isn’t the answer, and that silence is golden. But on my best days I can sit in a noisy restaurant and let the clamoring voices of customers wash over me without effect, because I’m so lost in the zone that the outside world can’t penetrate the world I’m crafting in front of me.
When I’m in that zone, what really matters is that I have hours (and hours…and more hours) to write every day. First thing in the morning, in between the classes I teach, before and after dinner, and then late at night before I collapse in exhaustion into my bed. Every hour of the day is a moment I could be writing, or thinking about writing, or fixing what I already wrote. It’s a consuming experience, which is why I’ve failed to ever keep it going beyond a month or two. But I promise, when someone offers me millions and millions of dollars to write books, I’ll stretch out my efforts to at least three months of the year.
…Okay, two-and-a-half. Maybe.
Is it time for my nap yet? All this excitement is wearing me out!
Here’s a secret: I have no routine. I have no fixed place and no scheduled time. I’m a decent wife. I get up with my husband in the morning, make coffee, feed the furry people, throw together lunch for Mr. Miracle to take to work. At eight, he’s out the door, and my routine for the day ends.
If I have a deadline, I write in short, efficient spurts or long, drawn-out sessions that leave me exhausted. If I don’t have a deadline, I write for a bit, wander around thinking I should do some laundry, get distracted by the mystery of what’s smelling up the fridge, and come back to write some more, leaving the mystery unsolved.
The writing could occur on the sofa, at the kitchen table, up in my office, or at any number of local coffee shops and restaurants.
I do not shower, brush my teeth, or even remember to eat at the same time each day. Those things tend to happen in between other things. I may unconsciously do the pee-pee dance for an hour before I become aware of the need to run, not walk, to the bathroom.
I am oblivious to the world, and I have no fixed pattern. When I have something to write, most everything stops except for the voices.
Once upon a time, I couldn’t write in public. Hell, I couldn’t even write if someone was in the same house with me. Even alone in a closed room, if I thought someone might be listening to my fingers clacking (or worse, not clacking) on the keyboard, I froze. (True story.)
This is why it took me so long to learn how to finish anything.
I’ve grown up. Not only can I write in a crowded restaurant, thanks to the amazing people on this website, I can write with an entire room of other writers sitting right next to me. On both sides. I don’t even care that they can see my screen. This shy little flower is now a big, fat writing exhibitionist.
Come see me write in the middle of the grocery store. I’ll totally do it. Set up a table for me in the middle of the dairy aisle. We’ll call it performance art. Tack up a sign that says “Will Write for Cheese.”
But I digress.
I know I make it sound like I’m all “leaf on the wind” about writing. But seriously, don’t expect me to be functional in the morning – and by morning, I mean before ten, despite having been up for hours.
Don’t ask me to write by hand. I can’t do it. My hand cramps up. I can’t read my writing. I get fidgety in my chair. I think faster than I can write, so I get frustrated. (I type far faster.) Most of all, I hate seeing something so permanent as words on paper. How can I take it back if it’s already written down?
I can’t write without knowing ahead of time where the story is going. I have to have a drink near me. I need my mouse because I hate the touch thingy on my laptop. If there’s music playing it can’t have any words because I’ll get distracted and start singing.
So, no, I’m not as easy going as I’d have you believe. One thing at a time. At least I’m not shy about writing anymore. And I can finish what I start now, so there’s that. The other things, well, I’ll get around to fixing them eventually.
For now, I’ll just be happy if I can figure out what’s going on at the back of the fridge.
I write with Professor Plum in the drawing room with the candlestick.
Erm. Wait. That’s Clue. We’re talking about writing.
Most of my writing happens on some computer or another. The only time I write by hand anymore is when I am jolted out of a dead sleep with a story idea and I’m too dazed to figure out how to work a computer. Sometimes I’ll turn on a lamp, but usually I use the flashlight and notepad I keep by my bed for just such occasions.
I have a behemoth of a Dell desktop computer that sits steadfastly in my apartment and allows me to write when I’m home. I also have a pretty blue Dell laptop for write-ins and coffee shop visits. This particular laptop was purchased not for its memory, processing power, graphics card, or storage (all sub-par to a computer geek) but because it had the most comfortable keyboard. I bought and returned two different laptops before settling on this one because it was the only one I liked to type on. And did I mention it’s blue?
I suffer from severe beverage abuse when I write. If I’m writing at a coffee shop, I’ve more than likely consumed at least one espresso drink (or possibly a magnificent chai latte from our favorite real-life café: Mirth). In the evenings at home, I am never without a glass of red wine by my side. It loosens the inhibitions enough for me to let go and just write.
I mostly write at night. I have to. My creative juices never seem to start flowing until after the sun goes down. But it also has to do with my day job. Oh yes, the dreaded day job that most writers have to have. I work all day, do my extra curriculars after I get off work, come home and eat dinner, and then I have a small window of time before sleep in which to write. Sometimes two hours. Sometimes only one if I want to read before bed.
It’s not enough, but I work with what I’ve got and make up for it on inspired weekends.
With all of these various elements, perhaps one should invent a writer’s version of Clue in which the player discovers where, when, and with what the author is writing.
It was Stephen King in the Library with the AlphaSmart.
Hmm. Nope. Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. I think I’ll stick to writing and leave the game invention to the experts.
Some writers have a special place to write. Others have a special time of the day. For me, the key to writing is technology.
For the past 20+ years, I’ve used Microsoft Word for all my writing. But this November that changed. For National Novel Writing Month, I decided to test drive Scrivener — one of the sponsors of NaNoWriMo.
Scrivener is described as a “complete writing studio.” It’s more than a word processor. It’s a writer’s office in virtual form.
As a writer, you need a ritual. I’d recommend staying away from anything poor-hygiene related, and most states tend to frown on animal sacrifice, but whatever oddball habit you need to cultivate to get your mind right, latch onto it, and repeat it over and over and over again.
When it comes to your writing routine, you need to be as superstitious as a major league baseball player on a hitting streak. Think back to a time when you went on a particularly productive writing binge. Your fingers flew across the keys, your characters were equal parts witty, insightful, and funny, and the voice of self-doubt that so often whispers in our ear was silent for a change.
It was a good day. Now go and recreate that experience.
“Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before. Get up and bite on the nail.” ~ Ernest Hemingway
When I was sixteen, I got my first job, bagging groceries at a small-town Hy-Vee. I was “a helpful smile in every aisle” no matter what the day had given me up to that point. I stood at the check-out, cheerfully asking “paper or plastic” to every customer.
I learned a lot in that first job. I learned a firm handshake, a warm smile, and how to work hard. My approach to every job since then has been a constant continuation of striding quickly, grinning in a Looney Tunes tie, to the front of the store to deal with the six o’clock rush. Clock in and get to work.
That is the way I write. I will write anywhere, at any time, on anything. No matter what else is happening around me, no matter what other issues life has presented me, no matter how I feel, I straighten my Bugs Bunny tie, put on that smile, and get to work.
In a place as diverse as the Confabulator Cafe, you’ll discover a wide range of things on each table as you pass through with your latte. Whether using a PC or Mac the writers type away in any number of word processors or software programs while creating their novels. There are even a couple of Confabulators who have written their novels completely on paper. Most of us take notes on paper whenever inspiration strikes and that’s just as wide a variety of pens, pencils and paper and napkins, too. (The napkins in the Cafe are heavy, 8″x 8″ luncheon napkins, by the way. We spare no expense because ideas have to be captured. There’s also a cup of pens on each table, usually left by previous patrons.)
So this week, you’ll find what our bloggers prefer to use to write. What may be most revealing is that some of us change, some of us don’t. Routine is just as important as what tools are used. Everyone has his own way of doing things and that’s just how we like it around here. Never mind that sound of crashing cups, saucers and plates. It’s all part of the atmosphere.
Every week we’ll ask the Confabulators a question that may further illuminate the blog question or give you some further insight into our working minds. This week’s question is “What’s your favorite genre to write?” Sometimes a writer is better at writing one kind of story than the kind of story she likes to read. Below, look for what this group of writers likes to write. For purposes of comparison, feel free to go back and read our bloggers’ thoughts on what books are their favorites to read.