Writing Week – The Autopsy

So, here I sit back at work after a week away, doing nothing but writing.

Okay, I lie.

I didn’t just write. I threw temper tantrums. I ate astonishing amounts of choclit and consumed such vast quantities of sugar that for brief periods (before the inevitable sugar crash) I could power small villages. I threw myself onto the eighteenth century fainting couch, rested my dainty hands against my forehead and wailed ‘Woe is me’ on more than one occasion. I wandered around the house in a clockwise direction; then in an anti-clockwise direction (although I did nothing that could be described as ‘dancing Widdershins’, for which we can all be grateful). In short, I indulged in a fair amount of struggling writer/angsty artist/drama queen behaviour.

The most worthwhile thing I did was make a plan as it became apparent to me that I was well beyond the point where I could simply float along with the story. I needed a map. I drew up a table with each chapter title in it and dot points about what happened in each chapter, so the whole novel was scoped out. As a companion piece to the chapter map I made a list of which bits I had actually written (a surprising amount); then I noted the bits I had yet to write.

Now I am filling in the blanks.

A conversation with the frequently wise Peter Ball reminded me that I don’t have to write thousands of words in one sitting (I mean, it’s nice if I do, but I don’t have to). All I need to do is work in 250 words increments. Do one lot of 250, then another, then another. Just like eating an elephant: one bite at a time.

I started the week with my usual style of squeezing 2,000-3,000 words out in a sitting, with recess periods devoted to weeping and wailing and inhaling choclit. And, of course, castigating myself for not writing more, faster, better, harder, higher!  Then I had the chat with Pete.

It is, I am the first to admit, difficult for me to change my process. I am very much a creature of habit: I can always be found in front of The Simpsons weeknights at 6 (in fact, one of my friends maintains that I could be easily led into an ambush purely by the playing of The Simpsons’ theme music); Saturday mornings always begin with making the pot of coffee, then walking to the newsagent for The Weekend Australian). I like my habits, I find them comforting and predictable when there’s so much else over which I have no control. So changing is a challenge for me – but even I recognize when my old behaviours are no longer working; when they are simply a habit (as JVDM has pointed out in Booklife, a habit is not a process). So, I gave the 250 word increment a go and, having tried it, I’ve found it worked.

The last time I tried to change a process, it was to start getting up early in the morning to write before work. It failed miserably – a bit like trying to graft wings onto a warthog, really. I’m never going to be that kind of writer, if only because my blood doesn’t circulate before 9am. But the writing in chunks thing, that’s a manageable, measureable, achievable goal and it’s delimited by a time period. So, on the four days a week when I work, my goal is simply 250 words before I cook dinner – rewarding myself with dinner is quite effective. At the end of those 4 days I have 1,000 words – huzzah! The other three days a week, the designated writing days, I am obliged to do considerably more than that – but in increments of 250. I can do increments of 250.

So, at the end of writing week?

I wrote about 10,000 words in the week, which is not bad when you consider the amount of time spent on histrionics. Ultimately, I’m not sure how many writers can resist the drama queen urge; maybe it’s just like a singer doing voice exercises. Or not … possibly those are the habits I’m just not ready to give up on yet :-).