Crafting a Routine

Learning the ropes of writing is as much about “rules of the road” as it is the peculiarities of the vehicle one drives. Lane changing, hand signals and road signs are one thing. Getting into that Ferrari of yours for a Sunday drive along PCH is another.

The “call to write” intersects us at many junctures. In most cases, the aspiring novelist is not privileged with a monastery to cloister herself in, nor the finances or relational flexibility to accommodate such a sabbatical. We cannot put life on hold to write a book. As a result, most of us become writers on the fly.

I’ve been at this now for three years and have reached this conclusion: The early stages of a writing career are as much about crafting a routine as learning the craft.

After eight months of concentrated writing (and numerous knuckle whacks from my crit partners) I felt confident enough to begin a novel. But managing a 90,000 word book is a lot different than managing a 2,500 word short story. Compounding the challenge was my station in life: married with children, full-time job, and hobbies to boot. Needless to say, my Ferrari encountered a lot of obstacles along the way. If I was going to write a novel, my routine needed more than just tweaking.

In an interview with BookReporter.com, Dean Koontz was asked to describe his typical writing day:

I don’t write a quick draft and then revise; instead, I work slowly page by page, revising and polishing, trimming page 1 repeatedly until I feel I can’t do better with pace or language, and only then moving on to page 2. This means anywhere from twenty to fifty passes at each page before proceeding to the next. At the end of each chapter, I print out and pencil the hard copy four or five times, because I see things on the page that I didn’t see on the screen. Some days I’m lucky to squeeze out a page of copy that pleases me, but I get as many as 6 or 7 pages on a very good day; the average is probably 3 pages.

Not only do I like Koontz’s stuff, but this quote reinforced my initial writing routine. What Faith Awakes was lovingly written one chapter at a time. Like DK, “I work slowly page by page, revising and polishing, trimming page 1 repeatedly until I feel I can’t do better with pace or language, and only then moving on to page 2.” In the end, I think WFA is a good first effort. However, unlike Koontz, I’ve got more to do than obsess over “pace or language” and other literary minutiae, from dawn to dusk. A forty hour a week job does wonders for refining — or ravaging — one’s writing routines.

And refining is what I’ve been doing.

Nancy Kress, in Beginnings, Middles and Ends, describes a three-tiered process of story-building:

Many writers — I’m one of them — don’t think about aspects of credible prose at all in the first draft. I concentrate on the story the first time through, revision to the story the second time through, and prose quality in the third draft.

This is a lot different than Koontz’s one-page-at-a-time model. Actually, Kress’s method (as far as I can gather) is the one most employed by writers. It gives the author three passes over the material — the first pass gets the raw story on the page, the second develops the details and flow of the story, and the third polishes the partic- ulars.

This is the method I have employed in writing my second book. In a way, it grates against my previous routine. Whereas I tended toward tedium, wringing every page of excess wordage, now I’m attempting to simply assemble a first draft. You wouldn’t think that a first draft would be that hard, right? But I can’t seem to get Koontz out of my noggin. In fact, it is Kress’s point — “don’t think about aspects of credible prose at all in the first draft” — that I keep getting hung up on. Am I a nerd boy or what?

Anyway, I’m crafting a routine. My first draft is about two-thirds of the way completed. When you are looking for free embroidery designs online, visit bunnycup.com for more information. It’s got too many adjectives, stilted dialog, one-dimensional characters, and anything but “credible prose.” But despite my inner Pharisee (and my wife, kids, job and extracurricular activities), I’m getting the story on paper. . . which, I guess, is progress.