Occasionally you’ll see advice out there that writers have to keep to a schedule, have to write X words a day, have to write every single day because that’s what it means to be a writer. That’s what writers do. You’re always supposed to power through, always keep moving, always push push push.
I’m sure this works for some writers. I am not one of them.
Not only do I simply not have time to write every day, I wouldn’t even if I could. I can’t write every day. I can barely write two days in a row.
Writing is tiring, it’s hard, and it’s easy to get burned out. After full a day of writing I feel physically and emotionally drained. It takes immense concentration. Coming up with new ideas is hard work. And blocking out all distractions takes willpower.
But it’s not just that. I need time to be distracted.
Distractions, the good kind, can come in many forms. They can be a friend who calls spontaneously one afternoon, a walk through the park that beautiful weather demands, a trip to a museum, or just a day doing absolutely nothing.
Sometimes you need to recharge. Sometimes you need to be inspired. Sometimes you need to just let yourself experience life.
I feel like as a writer it’s so important to listen to yourself. Don’t listen to the lazy you, the one who never wants to get anything done. But do listen to the Writer inside you (capital ‘W’), who writes because life is so interesting and amazing.
You can’t write if you don’t live. You can’t write good books if you’re a writing machine who doesn’t take time to live life fully outside of your work.
Some of the best inspiration comes precisely while you’re distracted, while you’re actively not thinking about writing and just noticing life.
Let yourself be distracted. It can be your most productive time.
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Really interesting post! I never really thought about the positive side of distractions before.
It's true that sometimes taking a break is the best inspiration. The thing to remember is to let the distraction take you, but not so far away that you can't (or won't) sit back down to write again.
Amen.
I'm one such person. Can't write for 8 hours straight. Besides, I go for quality, not quantity. So what if other people can write 10k in a day if most of it is crap?
I couldn't agree more. I run or go for walks and it always clears the fog. I'm ten times more productive when I take time for distraction (usually the healthy kind, like exercise).
Some of my most productive times (as in idea generation, phrase-making, thinking of research directions, etc., not the actual fingers-to-keyboard, of course) have been on walks with my dog.
Thank you for this post. Personally, I go through periods of intense drafting followed by cycles of editing and thinking during which I write little if any content.
As other posters have already mentioned, I also do some of my best thinking while walking/doing other daily tasks. I think my subconscious works better on creative issues when they're not in the spotlight, but lurking in the background messing with the stage lighting! š
This post about distraction provided a good distraction from what I'm trying to write right now.
Whoa. Meta.
This is so lovely and true. I go out and get myself distracted all the time because I tend to find answers to my problems when I stop looking for them. A friend of mine and I regularly just go "get out of the city" to some place not so far away and do things that are kind of weird and touristy. There's this great town only about an hour away from me that has more used book stores than gas stations and bars combined. It's like where all the used booksellers go to retire. A trip there alone can get me good and distracted enough to fix all my mental troubles. We also like to go check out the off-kilter tourist spots (there are a lot of them in most cities) like the birth place of so-and-so who invented something super obscure. Those are the best.
I do write most days, though I don't give myself a "You must write 12,000 words before lunch" deadline. I just write until I can't anymore. I think that all this writer advice is great to take and collect and put in nice nice storage boxes in your brain, but I think you have to take the right advice and apply it liberally only when necessary. Adverbs are bad! Except when they work perfectly. Write every day! Except when you're out adventuring upon life. Listen to writing advice from those who've already succeeded! Except when that advice tells you to quit.
Thanks for the reminder, Nathan. The most important point to me is that writers need to be observers of life, need to get out in public and experience life, so we can better write about it.
One of the best short essays ever on good distractions and bad distractions: https://www.ftrain.com/Followup.html
I'm in your camp. As much as I would like to write every day, I have a day job, a wife, and two young kids (not to mention a neurotic schnauzer) on my hands. My my time is limited, to say the least.
You're also very right about pulling inspiration from life and its distractions. I like it when my kids do and say funny things that send me scribbling on any paper I can find. If I were glued to the keyboard I would miss these blogable moments (and precious time with my boys).
When I'm not actively writing, I always have a story rattling around in my head, though. Sometimes it's a symphony of characters and actions, sometimes a lone premise echoing in a vast empty chamber (my head is a lot like a vast empty chamber much of the time).
WORD VERIFICATION: rallafo. Rolling around liberally laughing at funny offerings. NOTE: The use of the word liberally is not meant to be taken politically.
@rjdaley101071
https://mydaleyrant.blogspot.com
THE MAN IN THE CINDER CLOUDS
I find it timely that I'm distracted from my (hopefully) last day of revisions and am surfing my favorite writing blogs instead of glued to my wip. Thank you for telling me it's okay to be distracted! š
Thank goodness -permission to be distracted! And long live the power of daydreaming while we're at it.
Thank you again, Nathan.
I can write and edit my work for weeks or months on end, but when I finally burn out I'll quit for a year or more.
I find I'm either up to my eyeballs in the current novel, or else it's shelved.
Thanks for making my procrastination sound positive. I agree with Ava Jae, but I got to say, I do like that feeling of not having any thing breathing down my neck. I then seem to get a lot done once I am actually writing.
I use to be a thousand or two a day writer, or a two three session a day kind of writer. I guess having written several books that are now all waiting for revision, I have slacked off. But even back then I use to take several long walks a day, between sessions, or climb a mountain with some salami and bread, but that was when I had dogs. Then it became biking, and now, if I'm lucky, its walking the beach or Starbucks, or my curious inspiration I get from blogs. For the most part I just enjoy day-dreaming on the porch.
I write in bursts, often doing several chapters in a week or two, but then I can go weeks before I write again. I use that free time to mull over all the details of what comes next. To me that is all a part of writing the story well.
It's called Facebook. That is an addictive distraction I have yet to let go.
Ha! I have too many hobbies to NOT get distracted. Plus three kids who make writing several pages at a time impossible. I'm not the kind that starts an intro to a novel and never finishes it, but it takes me time. I've simply resolved to patience. I've been working off and on on my current MS for 9 months, and I will be happy if I'm ready for submission by Spring. I think it is just a matter of realizing that no novel will be written to perfection in a matter of weeks and to always, and I mean always, hold those characters in your mind, to the point that you fall in love with them. There are no characters worth writing about that you can't fall in love with.
Steph
http://www.luxeboulevard.blogspot.com
THIS.
Great timing – I've taken a few days off from writing because I'm just… tired… and I was starting to get into the cycle of beating myself up about it. Thanks for the reminder that living life is important work too.
I don't think all writers are the same. I go for months without writing, then will sit down and power through a novel in 4-6 weeks, with most of it structured by my subconscious brain before I sit down.
Trying to write before I'm ready is a waste of time (for me).
I know this isn't the same for everyone else, but I've learned the hard way what works for me. And what doesn't.
Unless you have ADD….then if you let yourself get distracted you find out its wednesday, two weeks later, and you're trying to build a shed using just clingfilm and old cigarette packets.
Yeah, the part I agree with best is the importance of paying attention to real life.
https://www.taylornapolsky
Distractions have given me some of my best story ideas. Observing life is a required part of being a writer. I posted about this some time back because imagination needs fuel and fresh air to revive it.
https://dghudson-rainwriting.blogspot.com/2010/11/curiosity-as-research-or-just-plain.html
Watching, and wondering — two things that keep our minds active.
Woah; does this new distraction thing include sleeping in on summer days? 'Cause it if does, COUNT ME IN! In other news, I totally agree, esp. if you're writing for kids and never are around any. YESH: tough luck…
This is the reason why I often think writing might not be the best profession for most. People in the medical profession work sixteen hour days without complaining.
Professional actors work longer hours.
From what I've read, Mary Higgins Clark worked full time, as a widow, raised her family, commuted to New York, and wrote from five am until it was time to leave for work.
If you love what you do, you do it as often as you can. And nothing trumps the book, not a party, a boat ride, or a vacation. I think it's important for all so-called writers to take the time to examine the reasons why they want to write.
I get tired of listening to excuses. Writers who love to write find the time or make the time. And it's the most important thing in their lives.
I'm curious. I see a few people are starting to promote themselves on the comment thread. Can we all do this? I wouldn't do it unless I asked first.
I like to think of it as productive procrastination.
Imagination is great, and certainly important, but it isn't everything. Sometimes you have to actually experience something.
I like to play hard for about two years, then work fourteen hour days for two years until I pump out a book. It's all about balance, people! (And I've got no balance whatsoever in my life. Please send help.)
I agree with this post and would even expand on it. Life is cyclical. We are not machines and it is a gross injustice to expect ourselves or anyone else to "crank it out" in any line of work. Much of what is difficult about modern life is the pace and timing – we have trouble keeping up. Children are expected to automatically absorb a certain amount of information at a certain pace. Teachers are supposed to make this happen despite interruptions, despite absences, despite human nature. Adults are supposed to get it all done, have time for their kids, and for themselves too. It simply is not possible and something has to give. I believe it is poisonous to allow this modern, mechanistic attitude to carry over into creative work. Creative on demand! Thank you, Nathan, for offering a voice of sanity.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. She said,while looking out at the waves gently slapping the beach. Water my best distraction and medium for construction.
I keep telling my wife this, but she keeps saying the dishes won't wash themselves.
So far, she's right. But I hold out hope.
I push for a simple 500 words a day. If I really struggle then I am done, but I have found if I can get past that barrier then its not uncommon to crank out 2,000 or more.
Point well taken. I've always felt sorry for those who write 16 hours a day. Don't they have a life? I admit I write every day, but only for a few hours at a time. That said, however, the time I spend on hobbies I also use to think about what I'm going to write next. My book is the top priority in my life, but hobbies give me a tima away from writing so it doesn't become an obsession.
Such a timely blog topic for me, Nathan, as I've been overwhelmed by the "noise" around me lately.
I'm reading the nonfiction book HAMLET'S BLACKBERRY where he talks about the importance of having "gaps" in our digital connectedness in order to have depth in our lives, which fosters creativity. Just like what you're talking about.
I'm on deadline right now, so I'm writing every day, but I'm trying to limit my digital connectedness and finding myself so much happier.
Ha, so why am I online right now and reading your blog? š
4 minutes ago, I said to myself, "you cannot write a novel and paint a bathroom".
The bathroom is half painted and looks terrible. But I have IDEAS that must be written!
I love this and agree 100%. Your blog is one of my favorites!
Thanks for reminding me of this. Enjoy your blog.
So true. I'm one of those "my brain needs a break!" writers. Plus, if we didn't actually live life and interact with people and learn interesting facts, where would we find inspiration? Would our stories be true to life? Would they teach universal truths? I submit that the answer is no! And of course, let's not forget the most important distraction for any writer: reading.
I am so glad other writers don't write every day too. I find it very difficult, and often I am inspired by my distrations, so they help in the long run.
Sometimes I can't tell if I'm making progress or going the other direction. That's when I know it's time for a break.
Great post, Nathan. I completely agree, a Writer has to have time to recharge. If I stayed put and did nothing but write, I'd be burned out in less than a week. Balance is the key. Thanks for the post!
Too much of anything, even writing, is not necessarily a good thing.
And speaking of distractions, just wait until you have kids!
I completely agree with you. I do try to touch the MS every day, even on the weekends. But sometimes that is all that it is: a physical touch. A walk by the computer and see it on the screen moment. I gave myself permission to take weekends "off" and to focus on enjoying my teenager this summer. College tours and traveling and talking to my friends long distance help vary my life.
Interesting people interested in many things make better writers.
Great post!
"Take a bath!"
If writing were my job, maybe I could do it every day. If I didn't have to balance it with full-time work to pay the mortgage, then maybe it would be possible. But that's still a big maybe.
Truth is, I've never had the opportunity to know if I'd get burned out. I think I would though.
I can sit down and write for hours, BUT every 30-45 minutes, I jump out of my MS, check email, stand up and stretch, do something around the house, and THEN I can jump back in.
amen, but that's the lazy part of me agreeing
I'm so glad you said this. I always feel like such a failure when I go a day without writing.
"You want to be a writer," I say to myself. "So DO IT."
But the muse doesn't work that way, does she?
Well yes – writing advice simply doesn't work in the same way for everyone! And it's so amusing – there is always someone out there (like Anonymous 8:23am) who assumes that everyone, deep down, is really just like himself. Apparently we just need to discover that fact and behave accordingly and we will find out what we are really fit for – because it can't be the same job that our exceedingly self-confident friend is so skilled at!
I'm interested in what others say about the writing process, but in 'The Magic Key To Successful Writing' Maxine Lewis treats writing as a psychological event. Well, if it's true, that changes things! It means that the writing process isn't the same process for you as it is for me – as Nathan implies in this post. Is it possible that a single method, system or attitude will fix the problems that such an event engenders, for everyone?
I don't think so. If each of us is encountering his own psyche whenever he writes then, for some, order, method, and calm will characterize the process and for others – such as myself – the encounter will always be turbulent, agonizing, and mysterious. For some there will simply be a job to do, while an epic inner journey confronts others.
But that opens up other possibilities. If each of us writes as he is meant to, the results will be as different as two souls. Those of us who have relinquished the easy dream of writing how and what we are expected to write, simply because that dream came into conflict with the psychological necessity of writing what we ourselves can write, are bound to face the fear that the market will never have room for what we have to offer.
I agree! Here's a really interesting article about the creative benefits of slowing down and enjoying life: Americans Work Too Much and Have Too Little Time for Play: Here's How to Slow Down 'The Great Speed-Up'.