The Making of a Novel: Do You Write Every Day?

An interviewer asked me this question last week -- "Do you write every day?" and I said, without hesitation, "Yes." That was a lie.

I don't put words on the page every day. I don't open the files containing my outlines and drafts and research every day. I have a day job -- I'm a writing teacher and coach. And I have a family -- one girl about to start high school, the other about to start college, and husband. And I sometimes get migraines that prevent me from sitting in front of a computer, or even looking at a piece of paper. So there are, in fact, many days when I don't put words on a page.

What I meant when I said "Yes," was that when I am in the midst of working on a story, as I am now, I think about it every day. I search the newspaper and the radio and the conversation of strangers for clues and tidbits and anecdotes I can use. I think about what I will write when I next sit down to write, and I think about how my story will end, and what my characters will do in the middle and who their friends will be and what they'll have for dinner. I can't, in fact, get the story out of my head -- and I think of that as writing.

When I do sit down to write, the words tend to come out in a rush. I ignore the phone and the carpool pick up time and the piles of laundry that threaten to take over the house. Nothing will distract me, or pull me away from my work, and I happily crank out the pages. I almost never sit in front of a blank page and just stare, because when I sit down to write, I'm ready.

I admire the habits of writers who sit at their desk for the same time each day, and write a fixed number of words or pages. It would be nice, I think, to have that kind of discipline. But I don't have it. And I have found that I don't need it, either.

And in just in case you were wondering? Not going to write today....

 

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Comments

[Ian James]

11:45 AM on 07/27/2010

Nice article Jennie... the thinking thing is what I do most which is the seed... then with giant selfish tunnel vision the flood gates open and I melt the key board for acouple of days. Once... I became so involved with the fantasy that I had to ask a friend to drive me to the store after my brain forgot how to drive.... Ian James- In Deeds We Trust

[xyz321]

04:35 PM on 07/25/2010

I think it's important to write every day, even if it is not on the current piece that requires your attention. Sometimes writing a moment in the day, or a thought that could belong in a future book keeps your mind fresh. I have three unfinished manuscripts that have all come along rather well from unstructured dawdling.

Granted, when I'm in the mood to write, when the idea I have for the next chapter have been swimming around in my mind for days, you can't peel me away from the story. I can't sleep, I can hardly eat, and writing is as easy as breathing when those moments happen. I love writing like that because if I feel forced, it comes out forced, and as we all know, it reads as if the words were forced onto the paper.

[Jennie Nash]

03:18 PM on 07/26/2010

This is as lovely a description of the writing process as I have ever read. "I can't sleep, I can hardly eat, and writing is as easy as breathing...." It makes it sound like falling in love! Which is apt, I think.

[xyz321]

04:52 PM on 07/26/2010

Why, thank you! It really is falling in love in many ways. It's a birth, an event the entire family (well, for mine at least) takes part in. Last summer as I was finishing my first book, which i took 3 years writing and researching, our A/C went out. I moved into the bedroom with the window unit and my laptop for the weekend, and wrote in my corner while the kids and husband watched movies. He told me there were times I'd start sobbing, and the kids would become so alarmed at first, he had to tell them mommy and her book were having a moment. Now, they're so used to it, they'll bring in tissues, or will start laughing when I'm giggling to myself.

The true beauty in writing is that it is taking nothing, and turning it into something from inception to birth. There was nothing there one day, then suddenly there's a book occupying previously vacant space. I keep a huge three-ring binder that holds the very raw, unedited 111,000 words I wrote originally. when I hold that against the polished, shiny new cover of a proof, I can't help but smile to the verge of tears. One day all of that was merely a blurb in my mind. Now, it's tangible, something I can hold in my hands.

[FightingTheRight]

09:51 AM on 07/24/2010

It is nice to know I'm not the only one.

I haven't worked on my novel very often this summer, but I do work on it in my mind most days.

And yes, when I sit down to write, the words seem to magically appear on the screen.

[Jennie Nash]

03:19 PM on 07/26/2010

Oh you are SO not the only one!

[seawolf77]

07:20 PM on 07/22/2010

I think probably the most interesting thing in the world after writing is the question of how to write. If Keith Richards had picked his nose with his left hand on gig nights, you can be there'd be a lot of sore nostrils around town. Why I have no idea? When has what worked for you ever worked for me? Never. Yet here we are still trying to beleive. I am writing a novel now and all my best laid plans lead me to somewhere I could never have imagined, and you know what, that's what stars do. They take people kicking and screaming to places they could never have imagined.

[Jennie Nash]

07:55 PM on 07/22/2010

You say you could never have imagined the direction your story turned -- but do you LIKE where it's going? It sounds like it, and it sounds like you're enjoying the ride, which is more than half the battle. In your second to last sentence, did you mean "stars" like Keith Richards or "stars" like twinkle, twinkle in the sky? I'm debating, so I figured I'd ask.....