Recently in Writing Process Category

Research is important to writing. Not just checking Wikipedia, of course, because the information on Wikipedia is wrong (any moron can edit it). Often a Google Search is a good place to start. But right now I'm talking about true research: Going places, meeting people, reading books libraries forgot existed. Yesterday, while researching my novel, I found several books in the stacks, which provided me with writing about the city of San Francisco. Believe me, I don't want to read all these books. But of course I will, with a smile on my face, and I'll be glad I did.

I want to say, Let's call this research, but since the Wikipedia Era is upon us, let's call it Deep Research instead. This is the same reason I say Rewriting or Redrafting instead of Revising: Too many people think revising means checking for misplaced commas. So we'll use the term deep research to mean "getting your hands dirty," or, for the brevity-inclined, for experience (also known, in the writings of Rollo May, as encounter).

Here's another example: Right now I'm working on an article for Signature. I bravely took the job because it offers me a chance to stuff my face with good food. I need to revisit my favorite eateries for a start, in person, and "be someone on whom nothing is lost," as Henry James said.

Everyone knows people, culture, language, and food are closely connected. This article requires more research, again, than just talking to my friends and saying, "Hey, friend, what cool local restaurant do you recommend I promote shamelessly?"

For personal experiences, try to be mindful while you're experiencing something. Writing can come later. You don't want to be jotting things down in a notebook while you're researching in person. You'll miss something. You probably want to write immediately afterward, instead, so you don't forget anything important. Or, if you're just reading a book, then it's all right to take notes.

In my own writing, I'm in the process of finding out, tracking down, and personally tasting. So remember, writing is hard work. Don't slack on the research.

Writers sit down every day and, even though their minds might be blank, they summon people, actions, settings, and stories to life. Professional writers, I mean. And it's a common mistake aspiring authors make, saying, "I need to enroll in a workshop class at the university so I have a deadline that will make me write." I used to say the same thing, I admit. But I've come to believe that writers must make time in their schedules and set deadlines for themselves. Intrinsic motivation is important. Authors who wait for inspiration, or for a particularly interesting idea to strike them -- well, let's be honest: Those writers don't get much written.

Part of the reason is that writers are naturally interested people. They are curious about others. About the world they live in. Writers always have an idea for some story or poem or article, even those who never write it down. The difference between a writer with a block and a writer getting work done is discipline. Sitting down to write, day after day, with no concrete direction, a writer may get discouraged. Better not to write at all, she thinks. I should spend my time reading articles on the Internet, or a new book, or sorting out the problems of my husband's finances. Maybe I'll just read etymologies in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Whatever the distraction, it's a temptation best avoided if you want to be a writer (at least for a few hours every day). The impulse to give up when lacking a direction is strong, but it can be overcome. Just sit down and type something. Type something, anything. Because writing is, more than anything, a habit. It may be an art, or a craft, but it is (above all else) putting words in order and making sense out of them. That's all. And that's something you can do every day for three to five hours.

If you don't know what to write about, take a deep breath: I promise, deep down, you do know. What interests you? What kind of people? What aspects of culture, history, or society?

If you still can't think of anything, pick an exercise. Writing exercises can sometimes help just by getting the fingers moving across a keyboard. I recommend John Gardner's suggestions from The Art of Fiction or (although I haven't read it yet) Brian Kiteley's The 3 A.M. Epiphany. You could also try the very well-reviewed Bonnie Neubauer book called The Write Brain. The important thing is that you keep writing. Keep the habit alive.

Because, like any habit concerned with experience and talent, writing needs to keep moving. If it stops moving, it dies. That may not happen overnight but it does happen eventually. A writer is only as good as the number of words he or she has written. As long as you're writing, then you're getting better. So, if you're still reading, close the Internet browser, open up a blank text file, and write something.

In the final chapter of his book On Becoming a Novelist, John Gardner addresses a question often asked by aspiring writers. "Do you write with a pen, a pencil, a typewriter, or what?" He says, and I agree, that the question is more important than it appears.

It calls to mind the kind of things professional gamblers are said to worry about, Gardner writes. Should one where a lucky hat? Which color of shirt is best when playing poker? And so on. It asks (without asking) if there is any hope at all for the beginning writer.

Desktop computers and blogs have made writing fast and easy. Is this a good thing? Yes and no.

Remember, just because you can write easily doesn't mean you should. Our world is fast-paced, chaotic, and always has been. But writing is not. It shouldn't be. Writing requires slow, careful concentration. This is as true for you writing e-mails in the 21st century as it was for Lev Tolstoy writing War and Peace.

I compose my stories, articles, syllabus, and  blogs on a Sony Vaio laptop computer. Usually I write in Microsoft Word 2008, and I keep the files on a titanium jump drive that, if not on my person, is usually close to me (on my desk, my bookshelf, something like that). Most people write on computers, these days, whether in the library or at home or at work.

It's important to remember (this is a friendly reminder) that writing is a process, a habit, and an act of mindfulness. It is not a physical process. Writing with a pen may be different in some ways than writing on a laptop. The important difference in the physical process, or the actual activity of writing, is a difference, too often, of quality.

Pencils and pens force us to go slowly. To think, compose in our heads, and to move forward with ideas instead of going backwards. Who wants to rewrite the first chapter of a novel 100 times in ink?

Yet computers are important. Remain mindful of computers and research venues (Google Scholar, Lexis Nexus, etc.) as tools. Only tools. A computer may help you write a novel faster, and it may even be good, but in some ways it may also harm your ability to write.

The best artists in this age of technology (and here I mean graphic designers, painters, sketch artists, photographers, and writers, too) understand the power of tools like Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office, but they never forget that the programs cannot make the art for them. They still pour in the attention of Tolstoy or Picasso, and the new technology takes them in different directions. In all its complexity, this is the one element that will never, ever become digitized.

You'll feel better if you do it. Don't think too much. Don't talk about it too much. Discussion kills the magic, robs it of power, slows down the momentum. Worst of all, don't think about those who are doing it when you're not. The world is full of talent, but most people lack conviction.

I'm sitting right now at my favorite spot, behind the glass windows of the Mud House coffee shop, typing on my laptop. The chairs around me are fairly empty, except for two young men, one blond, one brown-haired. I was ignoring them until five minutes ago. I've been writing on my novel Atlantis in the Sand and a thousand words came out pretty smoothly. For fear of continuing when I don't know what will happen next (and a fear of becoming too seduced by the sound of my keyboard) I decided to knock it off for today.

I can hear the guys talking about writing. I'm going to write this in my script, one says. This kind of character is best. The other guy says, Yeah, that kind of character is best.

Don't get me wrong. It's fine to talk about writing. The process, the ups and downs, the way it rolls around in your head. I discuss it all the time. It gets you fired up.

Just today I was talking with Steve Rucker again about the novel. And his short stories. We're considering writing something together, even, co-authorship, something I'm interested in. So, yeah, I talk about it. And I read about it, too.

Then I'm fired up. But I know if I get too fired up, I need to do it right then. I can't wait too long or the enthusiasm flags. Right after talking with Steve I came down here and got down to business. No time to waste, etc., etc.

I don't mean to give a ha-ha-I'm-writing-and-they're-not kind of post. I'm not bragging. What I am saying is this: If you want to write, you need to get yourself wound up, and then you need to write the thing. It's hard for me, too. But you have to force yourself, sometimes. Otherwise you won't get it published. The short story. The essay about your Dad. The screenplay that will make you a million dollars. Don't plot it. Don't think about it. If it's been cooking in your head, and you start to type, it will come out. I promise it will.

Sarah always tells me, Have faith. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Today, talking with Steve, I didn't know what would happen next in my novel. I wanted so bad to open it up and keep moving forward. But I had set it aside for two weeks. So I came into the Mud House, switched on my laptop, and waited for it to boot up. Except Google searching the Arabic word for Snow, I did not open the Internet (all good writers should know when to keep the Internet browser closed). I forced myself to write Chapter 2.

Now I'm exhausted again and I'm back to square one.  But I did write. I'm that much closer to the end of the book.

So remember: If you want to finish that piece you're working on, that poem, that novel, or whatever, then you need to do it. No plotting. No fancy software. Just you, your mind, and a computer (or paper, or typewriter).

Don't move. Don't get up. Keep the locked door locked.

A few days ago, Steve Rucker invited me to lunch at a small Italian café downtown, near the square, and I was in such a good mood I said absolutely without consulting my dwindling cash supply. For once didn't think about spending money. Dollars are tight, but not so tight I would turn down a steaming plate of spaghetti. Nona's is a narrow building painted white and trimmed in robin's egg blue, with some of the best food in Greene County for under ten dollars inside.

I had just finished up a meeting with my thesis committee chair, Brian Shawver. He read my proposal and gave me ideas for my thesis. Mostly we just sat around and talked. He talked about concerts in Kansas City, old professors of his from the University of Iowa, and Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union. We drank some coffee and talked about genre fiction and literary fiction, and the coming Fall semester. He gave me his thoughts on how to build convincing characters, and we talked about several points from his books Aftermath and The Cuban Prospect, and we debated the pros and cons of using tricks to burn a character into the reader's mind.

I left feeling wound up, ready to write, excited to tackle this new novel I'm planning, which is titled Atlantis in the Sands. It would have to wait for Nona's, of course.

When I met up with Steve, we fell to talking. I could listen to people like Brian and Steve talk all day long and never get bored. It came up that I had been reading the new The Atlantic article, "Is Google Making Us Stoopid?"

This article isn't what you think--it's not memory-based, really. But the opening bars struck a chord with me. You see, for a while now I've been feeling less sharp than I was. Not that I'm a genius, you know, just that I wasn't always so flaky. The author, Nicholas Carr, suggests that hyper-links and Internet, while making research easier, is actually altering our brain chemistry, and gives several instances of shortened attention spans, etc. You can read the whole article here and I hope you do.

The answer I had been seeking to my questions ("Why can't I finish what I start?" and "Why is it so hard to focus on writing sometimes?") was right in front of my nose. I knew it had something to do with the article, but I didn't know what. As he often does, Steve pointed this out to me. He's got that built-in, shock-proof shit detector Ernest Hemingway loved so much.

Writing is paying attention to a fictional setting moment by moment, with non-judgmental awareness. In mindfulness, when a mind wanders, you bring it back patiently, time after time. In writing, you have to keep closing the Firefox window with Wikipedia in it. Or Google Earth. Or Merriam-Webster Online. Or all those books you checked out from the library.

Mindfulness is hard enough. Writing, too. So why make it more difficult?

Steve said he always had to write late at night. No music, nothing. He said, "It was like I had to be in a bubble." I said, "I should try that." I thought of Stephen King's locked door, which he says is all-important. A locked door to keep distractions out and to keep the writer in.

Apparently, I sometimes need to lock the door in my head.

When I write now, I refuse to open other windows on the computer, even for research, unless the question is very small and easily answered. An example of that would be "When was T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom published?" Answer: "1935." But for something more complicated, like, "How does a steam engine work on an old train?" I do that research before I start writing. Otherwise, it's too easy to get distracted.

When I got home, I tried locking the door in my head for the first time. I wrote 10 pages, 2,000 words, and I plan to write more next week.

Stephen King suggested in one of his books that The Hemingway Solution was putting a shotgun in your mouth and pulling the trigger with your big toe. For writers, I will now propose a much less graphic alternative. If you want to write, well, I would say you can't do better than to follow this man's example, whatever his faults. To paraphrase Francine Prose, his routine hasn't seemed to hurt his career any.

The Hemingway Solution

• Wake up early and work hard once you're up. Don't read anything but the paper, because you don't want to work with all the giants of literature looking over your shoulder. Just write or work until you wear out mentally. This should be a little after lunch, maybe 1:30 or 2 pm.

• Always stop writing when you know what will happen next. If you do that, and let your mind work on the story while you sleep, you will never be stuck.

• Eat lunch, and make it something healthy.

• Physical exercise is next. Wear out your body and make yourself so exhausted that you can't think about your writing. Hemingway would fish and box, among other things. He loved a physical challenge. I run and lift weights, or play tennis and soccer. Anything will do.

• Read literature and catch up on your correspondence. Wait to check your e-mail until late in the day, just before or just after dinner. Find a good book and read it slowly.

• Don't think about the writing when you're not writing. This may be the hardest step. But endless plotting, dissecting, musing, and especially talking (to friends, to lovers, to family) will kill a book. It will shrivel up and die on you. This is not a joke. I've seen it happen many times.
  

• Spend time with that special someone who matters to you. As Hemingway once wrote, "I believe that basically you write for two people; yourself to try to make it absolutely perfect; of if not that then wonderful. Then you write for who you love whether she can read or write or not and whether she is alive or dead."

• Go to sleep. Repeat Hemingway's Solution in the morning.