1,003

I have been read­ing Rules of Thumb: 73 Authors Reveal Their Fic­tion Writ­ing Fix­a­tions (Ama­zon has it listed as 71 authors, but it’s 73 — an odd mis­take). It’s an inter­est­ing book look­ing at how a large col­lec­tion of writ­ers view their craft, what feel­ings they have and what sched­ules they fol­low. I like it because it’s less, ‘This is how to do it’ and more ‘Well, I do this… but that’s just me.’

The main rea­son I got a book on the sub­ject of work­ing the craft was because I felt I needed some indi­vid­ual views, includ­ing a wide range of dif­fer­ent takes on how to approach set­ting a rou­tine — some­thing I have not always been a fan of. When it comes to writ­ing, rou­tine is a strict alien that I don’t always see eye-to-eye with. I like to work on my time, but some­times — as often in life — it is based on the neces­si­ties and oppor­tu­ni­ties of my cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, which becomes a rou­tine by itself… sneaky.

But I did set myself up a time to write and it’s the same time I often use; the steady approach to the evening — 7pm. I had planned to start writ­ing at this time any­way, but in read­ing Rules of Thumb it helped me feel com­pelled to do it more. It helped trick my psy­che a lit­tle. Instead of it being about ‘me sit­ting down to write’, it became more about ‘every­one else does it, you’re no dif­fer­ent, so do it’.

One-thousand, three words. That’s what I came away with after a slightly late begin­ning (beans took a while to cook), and I was very pleased with that out­come. I’d been awake since 5am, worked 8hrs on my feet, fixed the dishes and laun­dry and danced a lit­tle with my kids (Madagascar’s ‘I Like to move it’ is a funky tune) so my ener­gies were wan­ing, but I pushed and made it happen.

I had to pick-up my writ­ing in the mid­dle of an inter­ro­ga­tion scene. I had actu­ally begun it a month ago, but never liked my approach to the two char­ac­ters and the angle the sit­u­a­tion was going in. So I moved the chap­ter to my addi­tions folder for pos­si­ble vulture-like pick­ings over when I edit, and began anew. Much bet­ter this time; much more timely a pro­gres­sion, more emo­tion and action (log­i­cally invoked in the harsh set­ting of the story).

I stopped halfway into the end of the scene so I know where to go today. A com­mon trick (?) use­ful in help­ing the brain recap­ture the moment and move swiftly on. Later today, at 7pm, I shall do just that.