Your Writing Is Only As Good as Your Preparation

I was watching one of those house programmes, where the couple were doing up a flat to rent it out as a holiday apartment. They finished, the agent came round and duly pronounced on how much - or how little - it was going to achieve. The presenter tried to tell them it was because the decorating work they'd done was poor, but they were having none of it and said those immortal lines, 'He doesn't know what he's talking about.'

(I love it when people with no experience say that about experts who make their living from doing whatever it is. There's something v satisfying about it, especially when they're proved wrong later. Schadenfreude in action. But back to the post...)

Even I, with my tiny TV screen, could see that the standard of work was poor and said as much to a friend I know who is busily doing up a house. 'Ah,' he said. 'It's all about the preparation. If you skip on that, you'll always end up with a poor finish.'

I don't think the analogy entirely works with writing because while some writers plan extensively before they get started, others head off into the blue. What I do think is that at some point a lot of work is going to have to be spent on doing stuff that doesn't always seem obvious.

That may be planning, it may be research, it may be editing, it may be character development, it may be re-writing, it may even just be thinking. Whatever, actually doing the writing is a relatively small proportion of the time that should be spent on a piece of work to produce something that is easily readable.

In my experience, both personal and that of students I've observed, there comes a 'Clunk' moment. Oh, your brain clunks. It takes a long long long time to write something good. It's not something that can be bashed out by next Tuesday. Craft skills have to be learned, through classes or practice or both. Time spent is key to getting a good finish.

And if you don't believe me, if you think I don't know what I'm talking about, well....you can guess what I think about you!

Using An Egg Timer For Writing

When my children were small, every writing minute counted and I was quite ruthless about getting on with it when I had the opportunity. Now my time is less regimented by the school run, and I have a tendency to let the minutes and hours drift away.

It's been a couple of weeks now since I brushed the dust off my Swiss Army Egg Timer (not nearly as iconic as their penknife) and began to use it regularly. First and foremost, I use it to limit my on-line time. I can't say I've been particularly disciplined - I have a habit of setting it for 15 minutes, then when the time runs out, setting it for another 15 minutes - but the theory is sound, and I'm more aware about how much time I can spend on-line.

As well as using it to limit on-line time, and time spent on domestic chores, I've been using the egg timer for writing. I've been having concentrated bursts of just writing anything down connected with the book, such as ten minutes on what the main character is wearing right now or what her bedroom looks like. I may never use the information, but writing it down is triggering other ideas and thoughts, and I'm sure it will add to the depth of my descriptions. And hey, it's only ten minutes.

I've also been using the timer for my main writing. I find I have random pockets of time, perhaps half an hour before I have to go out. Before my egg timer I would faff around, perhaps doing something domestic or grabbing a cup of tea, or randomly looking at stuff on line. With my egg timer I now sit down and write, knowing that I'm against the clock. It's surprising how much you can get done in half an hour, and how those half hours add up.

It's the great cliche - I'd write a novel if I only had the time. Well, most of us do have the time if we limit all the other stuff. And I'm find my trusty Swiss Army Egg Timer a useful tool to help me do just that.

The 80:20 Rule and How To Make It Work For You

I was having a cup of tea with fabulous children's author Liz Kessler (I mean, she's fab, tho I suspect her readership is pretty fab too).  She was saying how she starts working at 8am, and goes straight through to 3pm.  Pretty impressive stuff.  Then she said that all the stuff she was busy doing was promotional work, such as answering fan mail, organising appearences at lit fests, speaking at schools, Twitter etc.  By 3 in the afternoon she was exhausted because she'd been working non-stop - but somehow she hadn't done a smidgeon of actual writing.  

Oh, how I agreed with her (while feeling faint at the thought about starting at 8 and going on to 3 - I mean, how could I possibly miss Bargain Hunt?).  I can cheerfully spend my working day doing the following:

Twitter

Sorting out my blog - posting and comments

Reading other people's blogs

Commenting on other people's blogs

Reading articles on books/publishing

Facebook (tho I'm not very good at it)

Email - fan stuff, OFAH stuff, agenty, editory, publicisty stuff, organising meetings etc

Reading other people's novels

Reading other people's writing

Plotting and planning my brilliant career (Ha ha)

Writing articles for magazines

Writing short stories for magazines

All of it is relevant and essential to being a writer, and while I'm doing it I'm patting myself on the back that I'm busy at work, but none of it actually contributes a single word to my main project: the new book.  

Round about this time of year there's usually a helpful article in the paper about how women wear about 20% of their wardrobe all the time, and the remaining 80% never.  The article then goes on to advise decluttering and sorting clothes into keep, store, charity and chuck.  

I think it's all too easy for us writers to spend 80% of our time on all the peripheral stuff, and about 20% on the actual writing.  I made a conscious decision last Spring to declutter my working day.  My equivalent of keep, store, charity and chuck went like this: 

No Twitter until lunch time

No Twitter in the evening

Don't read all those articles about the death of publishing

Don't read everything about epublishing

Make notes about blog posts at the weekend so they're ready to roll when it's time

Post on the blog Monday-Friday rather than every day of the week

Make notes on future projects but don't actually DO anything unless the word target for the day has been reached

Set a timer for reading other people's blog posts - max of 30 minutes a day

Stop being neurotic about answering every email the second I get it

Minimise Facebook and don't get sucked into LinkedIn

Now mornings are for writing, and everything else has been shunted to the afternoon or evening.  I still haven't got an 80:20 split in writing's favour, but it's getting better - more like 50:50.  And has the world come to an end?  Nope.  

Any other good tips for getting the balance round in writing's favour?

Finding More Time To Write

Someone said to me last week, 'You must be brilliant at time management.' It was a bit disconcerting because I think I'm rubbish at time management. It's one of the areas I constantly berate myself about, as I'm a serious procrastinator.

But I have to admit it's not the first time it's been said to me, so I've tried to think what other people see in me that I know is not true. My conclusion is that it's because outsiders only see the things I achieve/do - the novels, short stories, teaching, blog, Twitter etc. What they don't see is all the faffing around that I tend to do in the privacy of my own home.

We can't do everything. A high achiever such as, for example, Barrack Obama is busy holding international meetings with heads of state, but he's missing out on other things - wasting time on a sunny day with a couple of mates out in the garden with a glass (or two) of wine, for example, or watching The Shawshank Redemption for the sixth time. Now, you might prioritise Mr Obama's occupations over mine, and his are undoubted more significant than mine, but I get more enjoyment from revisiting a favourite film than I would from any amount of high level meetings with heads of state.

It makes no difference how clever or focussed or anything we are, we can't do everything. If we choose to do X, we can't do Y. All we can choose is what we put high on the list. I put writing and reading and teaching writing high on my list. I put going to the cinema and art galleries and being with family and friends even higher. Everything else is, frankly, an also ran.

I don't have any other hobbies. I don't sing in a choir, for example, or play sport. I don't cook, except for special occasions. I do minimal housework - my domestic standards are low, I'm not interested in immaculate or perfect. I don't watch much television. My children have grown up so I'm not bound by things like the school run.

So, yes, I do lots of writing related things, because that's what I prioritise. My priorities might not be yours - I once tweeted that I hadn't ironed anything in years, and someone tweeted back, how sluttish. That's her opinion. Mine is, ironed clothes don't make you a better writer (or a nicer person).

If you don't have time to write, it's nothing to do with being a good time-manager, and everything to do with what you're choosing to prioritise. If you want to write, you will. Make it your priority, and it will happen.