What is your writing discipline, if any?

Do you follow any set schedule in your novel writing, or do you write as you have time and inclination?

Myself, my 2004 resolution was to get dead serious on my mystery novel series. So I have batten down the hatches and put myself to work more diligently than before. And the results have been worth it.

This past month for example I've undertaken a rewrite and expansion of my first novel. It was too short (44k) and I've not only lengthened it but I've revised it from scratch, tightening the dialog and narrative.

I re-read the entire novel, making lots of changes throughout. Next I've added a B-plot line, and in the past few days have cranked out 6,000 words thus far, in my expansion plan.

So what I've done is to block out some time in the morning, and some in the evening. Morning is for reviewing what I've previously written and sketching out new stuff, and evening (with the coffee going) is for writing, writing, writing.

By putting myself on schedule I've made some great progress, whereas earlier last year I wrote haphazardly, and it was very spotty.

What are your schedules like? Do you set up a timetable or do you write whenever you can make it?

discipline

I have a strange kind of writing discipline, but it seems to work for me. I'm self employed, and work with my partner (who lives close to me) in an office about 10 miles away from here. We car-share to get there, as is obviously sensible. Only my partner is horribly unpredictable at what time he gets up in the morning.

So, I tend to be up and ready for work by 8am (the earliest he's ever up), and then check web sites like this one, which I'm normally done with by 8.30 or so. Then I write until he's ready to go, which is frequently as late as 11am, so I average about an hour a day that way.

schedule

While there are things that can move my writing hours to different parts of the day, my schedule is pretty much set in stone. I write two and a half hours in the morning, usually 9-11:30 now, then eat lunch and take a long walk. I work another two and a half hours in the afternoon, 2-4:30 now. So I work two and a half hours, break two and a half hours, work two and a half hours. I used to do this five days per week, but now, since my kids are older, I usually stick to this six days per week.

I've done this for several years, though I move the writing sessions forward or backward half an hour or so every six months, depending on what else is going on in my life, deadline pressure, etc.

But it goes essentially unchanged from year to year.

I also do most of my editing and market research on Saturday, once the second writing session is finished.

Reading is primarily done in the late evening/early night, after supper.

Re: schedule

I mentioned this on another thread, but why not go over it again?

I've always been a night owl, so I write at night. On the weeknights I write from 9PM to 2AM generally. At work I have a lot of time alone working with my hands (fixing up vacant apartments) so I get in a good four hours worth of brainstorming for coming chapters. After work I review the previous nights writing between 7PM and 9PM. Then the cycle starts over.

Saturdays I can usually get in 10 to 12 hours unless there's something else going on like a family gathering or just a night out with my girlfriend. (She's been awfully lonely since I started this novel).

So I probably average 35 to 40 hours a week (wow! that's like a full time job!) It takes it's toll. Chores go undone, and at my joe-job I'm both sluggish, and preoccupied - a fact that gets me a nice lecture from the boss about once a month.

I've been working on the same novel for about a year now, and you'd think I'd be done, but I'm not.

Somebody please tell me that the first novel is the hardest, and it gets easier with time?

easy to be hard

The first was easiest. Each gets harder because I know what I'm doing wrong, what I am capable of, how difficult it is, what the stakes are for me personally.

Ah for the innocent days. I used to think that once I knew how to write a novel, it'd be no-brainer to whip 'em out.

Technical things are easier, but the creative process more intense with each book. Others will tell you successive writings differ, or are easier than previous books.
:nerd

To answer katdad:
For now I'm on 7 days most weeks, with a day off once or thrice a month. Hours vary from a few to fourteen when I can stand it, to compensate for shorter work days.

I'm prone to workaholic mode and this schedule, while fun in its way, could burn me out. I balance with walks, less coffee and more sleep. I read less on time away from writing, to save my eyes. I need them to read music too.

It's Halloween. Pet a black cat while eating candy.

eace

Re: easy to be hard

The first was easiest. Each gets harder because I know what I'm doing wrong, what I am capable of, how difficult it is, what the stakes are for me personally.

Click to expand...

This is good to hear. So it's not just me...

As for when I write, I think it's best to have an absolutely fixed time when you do it. My kids leave for school at the ungodly hour of 6 am, so I'm usually in the office by 6.30. From then until 8.00, when I need to prep my lessons, gives me a solid 1 1/2 hours a day. Saturdays and Sundays I work two or three hours in the early morning.

Still haven't sold anything yet though... :lol

Re: easy to be hard

I am totally undisciplined. I do write better at night, but if
I go to a coffee shop I can manage to get a good few hours of undisturbed writing done.

I try not to measure my progress by word count. Instead, I measure it by how much story I got to tell -- plot, character development... how it measures up to the entire story.

Re: easy to be hard

Sometimes I can resist the urge to write for two or even three days before it overwhelms me.

Re: easy to be hard

I set goals from time to time. Currently my goal is to have at least 10 pieces submitted. Last August i wrote 3000 words a day on my book. Whatever keeps things moving formward without driving me insane

Re: easy to be hard

i write during breaks and lunch at work. my job job is basically a yard stick of 'suck' that real jobs are measured by, so i've got more time to think than actually write. personally, i don't really enjoy writing, but it's the only way to get my idea across because i can't stand the sound of my own voice when played back to me. were it conceivable, i'd delegate my ideas to someone who actually could write, not a hack like myself and double-check it at the end of the day to make sure it's not pure crap. my theory is if i can write better than you, then you must really suck and maybe it's time to think about taking that pottery, painting or sculpture class you've always made excuses for not taking. some people were born to write, unlike me, whose creative output should be limited to latch-hooking. but since latch-hooks are expensive and i need a way to channel my murderous rage, hey, why not write?

when i do sit down and bang away on the keys, it's always at night when the wife's asleep, maybe for an hour or two. twice a week. sometimes more, sometimes less. i'm the type who needs deadlines to burn my ass else i'll just be lazy about it and get to it when i get to it. that people can write five hours a day amazes me. if it did that, i'd pop out two novels a month.

i don't think the first was any harder or easier than the others, but it definitely helped my confidence knowing that i could indeed finish it. really, the most difficult part now is finding an idea that interests me enought to invest the time and labour into, *then* not getting bored with it. again, i need the pressure to push these ideas into lots of pixels else my mind wonders and

first novel

The first novel I wrote was so easy I thought writing was a snap, and making money from it was like stealing.
But for me, at least, everything thereafter has gotten harder and harder. Writing the second novel was ten times as difficult as writing the first, and it hasn't gotten any easier since.

I believe there's a lot to be said for the ignorance and arrogance of youth.

Re: first novel

are you calling someone ignorant and arrogant?

Re: first novel

Only himself, and I think that's allowed

I don't have a set schedule on when i write, i seem to write in major flurries. My house keeping will go to pot for a week while i write 3 or 4 chapters worth of material. However it does not seem to matter day or night when i need to write i write.

As to work getting harder or easier, I wrote my first book in about 4 months, i've been a year editing, lol. My second book is started, and three more books, and two unrelated short stories all demand my attention at different times.

I find it easiest to write when my imagination demands it and when there are no demands, i edit. For me it works better than trying to force out a bit of writing to fit a schedule.

Always working on it...

Billie

ignorant

"are you calling someone ignorant and arrogant?"

Yes, myself. I think most of us are both ignorant and arrogant when very young. I know I was, and my ignorance and arrogance is precisely what made writing that first novel so extremly easy. My ignorance meant I didn't know the job was extremly difficult, and my arrogance told me if anyone else alive could do it, then so could I.

Age has, I hope, made me much more knowledgeable and I little less arrogant. I now know how hard writing a good novel is, and I now belive there are those who can do things I'll never be able to do.

So writing has gotten harder. I now see the weaknesses in myself, and the flaws in my writing, and each novel, each short story, seems a little harder to write than the one that went before.

So for me, at least, writing doesn't get easier over time, it gets harder.

Writing Discipline

Part of my discipline is to have a strong cup of coffee in the early AM, and a glass of wine (or Schnapps) in the evening. I start writing as early as I can, take short breaks during the day,take a long break from 2:30 to about 6:30, then back to writing 'til my eyes droop and I can barely remember my own name, let alone the characters in my ms.

Re: Writing Discipline

We all have ignorance and arrogance...especially as writers we tend to think, at least at times, we have more important things to say than others. Now compound that with early success...

In a way, I'm kind of glad that I wasn't a "success" in my 20s. I had to struggle much like many people, even though I believed I had the talent to succeed -- it just wasn't my time. In many ways that grounded me, made me realize success doesn't come easy, and it may never come. I also realized that if I had been very successful early on, my big ego would explode.

And you see that in many things... such as actors who flame out early (can we say "Maculey Culkin"?) vs. those who achieved success much later (e.g. Harrison Ford). It's not to say early success will always jaded a person (e.g. Elijah Wood is doing pretty well); but it does alter a young mind to think that the world is easier than it is.

Re: Writing Discipline

>>Somebody please tell me that the first novel is the hardest, and it gets easier with time?<<

It does get easier, technically. In other words, getting over that hump is very important.

An interesting discipline is from Robert Parker (author of the Spenser series). His goal is to produce 5 finished pages per day. That's five complete, proofread and completed pages of typescript. He normally works 5 or 6 days per week.

I had a real inspiration hit me regarding my novel about two days ago and I've been writing steadily since. I won't run out of steam for a couple weeks, and hope that the novel will be mostly finished by then -- at least the first draft of new stuff.

Re: Writing Discipline

May I humbly suggest, as it regards discipline when writing, the writer should find he or she a dependable, supportive significant other; whether it be lover, wife or husband, boyfriend or girlfriend, life partner... what have you, and then convince said "significant other" to carry their lazy buttocks while the writer does what he or she does best... writes. My own beauteous lady has been "carrying" me for the past four to five months, without even the slightest notion of annoyance or tedium, and in that time I've adapted a novel from one of my screenplays, writing over 450 pages in less than five weeks, and re-wrote an entirely different novel.

As writers, time is both our curse and our boon. Nothing is more precious to me than time. The irony being that when I need it the most, I can never seem to find it, and when time is readily available I find myself "in between" projects, caught in an uncomfortable state of indecision.

... go figure:shrug

When I have the time that I need, I treat the writing like a job, granted, it's the greatest job ever conceived by man, but a job nonetheless. I get up at seven in the ante meridian, Monday through Friday, write until noon-ish, workout, return home, and write until my Lady returns to me. The weekends I take off. This seems to be good for me. It gives me the time I most desperately need to focus on my stories, and the weekend gives me time to remind my spectacular wife that I do indeed, regardless of the hours locked inside my office and inside my head, adore and love her like none else.

"Write to live. Live to write."

"Liquid joy..." :coffee

Re: Writing Discipline

I have to stick to a rigid discipline because of my day job. I work from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m Monday to Friday, and 9 to 6 on Saturday.

Therefore, six days a week I write during every lunch hour, and on Sundays I get up at the same time as I always do (7 a.m.) and write at least until noon. My wife is a late sleeper, so she's up and about by then and we spend the rest of the day together. On holidays, I follow the Sunday routine.

The toughest part for me is when I hit a groove during a lunch hour and have to stop dead in my tracks to go back to work. :head

Re: Writing Discipline

it's funny, people seem more impressed that i'm able to write a book than i am. 'oh, i could never do that.' yeah, pretty much anyone can write at least one book. it's just about putting the time into it. 'i don't have any talent that way.' neither do i, trust me. neither do a lot of people who think they're great writers. i posit that most anyone with a basic grasp of the fundamentals of their native friggin' language has the ability to *learn* the craft of writing. 'talent'? screw that. i'd rather be lucky than talented any day.

there must be some kind of mystique about writing that never impressed me enough to feel particularly arrogant about doing it. given the type of person i am, i reckon that part of my life was written in the stars, know what i mean? i've always likened a book to restoring a car. sure, it would really help being mechanically inclined, but i know how to use basic tools and could, if i had a good guide book, rebuild that engine block if i set my mind to it.

the best thing i've ever felt as a result from writing is a sense of pride completing a project, especially since i don't complete many of them anymore. the hard part has been staying on task and not drifting to fresh pastures. as for the actual writing, i find myself intentionally making it difficult in an effort to make it entertaining for myself to write. i love setting up situations where i have to sit there and contemplate how the character will get out of that. i'm a slower writer now, too, because i demand more out of myself, though being more experienced i'm better able to achieve whatever goal i think there needs to be. so, in that sense, yes, writing is more 'difficult,' but i feel 'challenging' is more fitting. certainly the technical aspect gets easier, but as my imagination suffers through aging, coming up with new things is harder.

i think one of the biggest things that's helped me was the acceptance than as a writer i'm also a thief. if someone i'm talking to says something i like, i tell 'em, 'i'm gonna steal that.' if they think i'm joking that's their problem. i mean, it's just phrases for the most part, not plagairism, lol. who can say they've never been reading a book and was suddenly 'inspired' for a story idea or plot point or 'borrows' a part of a character? anyone who's ever used words to the effect of 'i'm simply using the accepted conventions of the genre' probably isn't as much of a wunderkind as they may think, eh? so, yeah, i think a little thief in every writer. coupled with the fact i'm doing what every other writer does, i never felt an arrogance.

'oh, i could never be a writer. i don't have the time or patience.' oh, okay, but you can get on a message board and put up 17,000 posts, material enough for three books?

yeah, i guess there's of course some ignorance when you're doing your first book. you don't know how long it's going to take, how to do certain things. you find quickly that writing a novel isn't like short stories. just a random figure, but i estimate that 75% of what you need to know to finish a novel is learned in your first attempt (depending on the kind of approach you use).

does it get easier? i think it does, but what makes it harder is the demands you put on yourself to get even better. it only gets easier if you keep regurgitating the same palp over and over again. i mean, how hard is it to write the same story five times? don't most editors take an average new writer on in hopes that they do get better? pride dictates that you push yourself to do better, and therein doesn't there arise the difficulty?

Re: Writing Discipline

Count me as one of those for whom it's gotten harder over time. Partly this has to do with what others have mentioned--increasing the challenge bar, greater awareness of my flaws (compensated for by a better sense of my strengths), increased awareness of how difficult it is to get it right. Partly it has to do with my problems with the commercial side of writing, which are strictly my own and which I won't whine about. I will say that writing professionally has stripped out a good deal of the joy. Or maybe it has added an extra burden of anxiety. I can't quite tell which.

I also seem to have a worse and worse problem with procrastination. I never used to procrastinate; in college I was one of those annoying people who got their papers done a week ahead of time so I could proofread them at leisure. Now it is just so hard for me to sit down and work. I get this drowning feeling when I sit down in front of my computer. Once I get into it, it's fine; in fact, I often have trouble stopping. That initial plunge is really tough, though.

- Victoria

Re: Writing Discipline

I used to write 7 to 8 hrs a day, now I am lucky to get in a good hour or two everyday--today, I had planned on getting in at least two good hours. Work happened, I had to stay till 4 pm. Came home and crashed on the couch.

It does get harder. As you go on you want the next and the next to turn out like the final draft of that first book. You are not happy with first draft stuff anymore, which in turn makes it harder to write.

Shawn

Re: Writing Discipline

Count me as one of those for whom it's gotten harder over time.

Click to expand...

I agree, for the same reasons you list.

The act of writing itself gets easier, but the crafting of a better story, an improved novel over the earlier efforts is what makes it more difficult in that vein.

Nevertheless, for a fledgling writer, to finally put "The End" on a first novel is a terrific goal reached. There are so many uncompleted novels on diskette floating around, or so many more people who say "I should write a novel..." and never do.

So losing virginity is very important for novelists. ha ha

Re: Writing Discipline

Every novel poses new challenges. Each time I try to accomplish something I have never done before. I never try to overwhelm myself with any challenge, just raise the bar a bit so I have to jump higher; lower it a bit so I have to squeeze harder to get through.

Many professionals quit challenging themselves when they get sold, which is kind of sad.