I came across a blog about writing and productivity. She says productivity is directly tied to three things: one is knowledge. Before you start writing the scene, set aside a minimum of five minutes to plan the scene you are going to work on. What are you trying to accomplish? What is your character trying to accomplish? What happens? What will the conflict be? The second element is time. She said, keep track of when you write, and try to schedule your writing in the times you are most productive. She wrote more in the afternoon, away from her house, and usually for long rather than short sessions. But for each person the optimal circumstances will be different. The third element– and this was the real AHA moment for me– is enthusiasm. When you do your planning/thinking about the day’s writing, try to locate the part of the scene that you are excited to write. If you can’t find a reason to be excited by the scene, invent one, and if you can’t invent one, then cut the scene, and find another way to work the information into the story.
This morning I was thinking as I rode out to Lexington that this stage of parenting is where the rubber meets the road: being a well-intentioned, helpful person isn’t enough. You have to be a good person, because they are watching everything, all the time, and practicing what you do. If you aren’t modeling it, they can’t do it.
Yesterday I was thinking about Stephen King, who had a car accident that crushed all the bones in his body, and when he was convalescing got his wife to prop him up in a tiny alcove by his hospital bed so that he could start writing again, even though he was in excruciating pain. I wondered. Was it something that he loved that much?
Telling stories is hard for me, hard enough that I avoid it when I can, doing other things instead, like cleaning the kitchen, or cooking, or breaking my computer so I can fix it. Which is why it seemed fitting, not even ironic, when my computer helpfully broke itself so that I wouldn’t have to start this morning.
You finish, Maeve Binchy says, because it would be too humiliating not to. So that when people say, “did you ever finish that novel?” you can say, “of course I finished.”