How Do You Get From 0 to 1? From Dreaming to Writing, Writers Tell Their Stories
After I graduated from college, I wanted to write a novel. I’d had this dream ever since I could remember. But first there was the small matter of supporting myself. I didn’t look for a full-time job; I wanted a job that would earn me enough money to pay for rent and food while still allowing me time to write.
This was harder to coordinate than I thought, but at last I found a job that paid decently and ended at 2pm. For the first couple of weeks, I went home each afternoon and wrote. To be honest, my first chapter wasn’t as good as I’d hoped. As the weeks went by I sometimes needed to stay late at work, or someone wanted to have coffee with me after my shift, or my sister called, or I hadn’t eaten lunch, or, or … You get the idea. Somehow my writing time got whittled away. Six months later, when my job morphed into full time (and I didn’t stop it), it vanished completely.
Making writing a regular habit is no small feat. With all the distractions in this world (not to mention earning a living), it seems to get harder and harder to pursue dreams. I truly believe that in order to succeed as a writer, you must first of all have discipline, which to me means a regular writing time. After that: perseverance and the willingness to work on your craft.
Starting to write that novel you’ve been fantasizing about for years is a little bit like trying to lose five pounds. It sounds easy enough, and yet it still hasn’t happened. So how do you go from zero to one—from not writing to writing?
I asked a group of authors this question and came up with a host of practical suggestions, which I’ve outlined below. Not every suggestion will work for everyone; many writers said, Just sit down and write! This, to be honest, did not work for me. What did work for me was to . . .
- Take a class.
I signed up for a creative writing class at night at a nearby college. Ever the good student, I was able to finish a short story if I had an assignment and a deadline. The class helped me get a portfolio together so I could apply to a local MFA program, which insured that I had assignments and deadlines for two more years. At the end of that time, I had incorporated writing into my regular life (I also negotiated one morning off per week at work).
- Find tools to help you to incorporate writing into your life.
Buy that laptop, keep a notebook handy, find a way to record those opening sentences (Dave Eggers dictated his entire first book into a tape recorder).
Lara Beth Lillibridge writes: “I bought this $50 bullet proof portable word processor called an AlphaSmart (it was a long time ago) and dragged it to the playground, and the fast food play areas, and the kids’ bedroom floor. When I got home I plugged it into my computer and uploaded. It has no internet to distract, was light weight, and could take a beating.”
- Commit to a time (and sit at your desk the whole time, even if you are not writing or don’t like what you’re writing).
Sally Crosiar writes: “I told myself to write one bad page every day. .. this gave me permission to write junk. And when I made myself sit and type, more than one page came out—and sometimes it wasn’t all junk. I did not wait till I knew how to write a novel.”
Nancy Peacock made herself sit at her desk made herself sit at her desk for an hour each morning before work. “I didn’t have to write —I just had to be there. I took weekends off and gave myself ‘sick days’ and I kept track of it all. And I said I’d write a chapter each month.” Which she did! At the end she had a novel.
Some tips for finding that time:
- Look at the whatever free time you already have and exploit it, even if that time doesn’t seem perfect (you can work at lunch time, though you’d rather work in the morning).
- Utilize any changes in your schedule to start a writing routine. Your work hours have shifted? While adjusting to that, it’s a small step to adjust to one more change—a committed hour to write.
And don’t forget to eliminate distractions:
Sarah Angleton writes: “When my youngest son went to preschool I suddenly found myself with three free hours, three days a week. I decided I would use that time to write a novel. I closed my garage door, pulled down the blinds, sat at my kitchen table, and blocked out everything but my novel. It took me about three months until I had a complete draft. Once I knew I could do that, I had the confidence to keep going.”
- Find a writing partner or start a writers’ group.
I know an author literally writes with her writing partner via Facetime; they sit at their respective desks in two different cities and work silently on their manuscripts, connected and accountable by video.
Celeste Purosky-Straub writes that it’s been valuable to make herself accountable to someone besides herself, such as a writing group looking forward to reading that next chapter, or a friend who can’t wait to hear how the story ends.
- If the muse hits unexpectedly, stop everything and write.
Once you have some preliminary pages under your belt, you will be more inclined—and even more excited—to carve out the time to go back to them.
Michelle Linder writes: “I was inspired one winter’s day doing the dishes, [and I] frantically typed out all the words swirling around in my head for two months straight, then went on to write three more novels.”
- Allow yourself to be motivated by fear or spite or frustration. This is your dream, we’re talking about!
Alice Boatwright describes how fear motivated her:
“I took a full-time job that meant I had to write early in the morning or I was never going to write at all. That possibility scared me so much, I began to do it. Every morning, I fed the cat, made my tea, sat down at my computer, and opened my book file. I didn’t do anything else for 30 minutes or an hour, and it worked.”
Racheline Maltese writes, succinctly, about spite: “People told me I couldn’t, so I did.”
I love that! I’ve felt that way sometimes, too.
And my final suggestion . . .
- Know yourself. Work with who you are to make your dream come true.
Christina Baker Kline has cautioned that it’s important not to confine yourself to a certain set of conditions in order to write. If you feel you must write in a hotel room by yourself, or in your own attic office, or in a certain coffee shop, you will be in trouble when (and there’s always a when) those conditions can’t be met.
Similarly, when trying to start up a new routine you don’t want to set an unreachable goal. If you have a hard time waking up in the morning, don’t decide you must get up even earlier to write. Instead, plan to write at night after dinner or during your lunch hour.
“Discipline” sounds so Puritan work ethic-y, but it doesn’t have to be. Carving out an hour a day where you can think your own thoughts and write some of them down—really, how bad is that? However you decide to proceed, you’ll have moments of real joy when you’re in the writing zone and you’re flying. “Discipline” is simply creating the place where that can zone can exist.
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Martha Conway is the author of The Underground River, a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. She teaches creative writing in Stanford University’s Continuing Studies Program.
Find out more about her on her website: http://marthaconway.com/
Follow her on twitter @marthamconway
THE UNDERGROUND RIVER, Martha Conway
Set aboard a nineteenth century riverboat theater, this New York Times Notable book is the “captivating, thoughtful, and unforgettable” (Kathleen Grissom, author of The Kitchen House) story of a charmingly frank and naive seamstress who is blackmailed into saving runaways on the Underground Railroad, jeopardizing her freedom, her livelihood, and a new love.
It’s 1838, and May Bedloe works as a seamstress for her cousin, the famous actress Comfort Vertue—until their steamboat sinks on the Ohio River. Though they both survive, both must find new employment. Comfort is hired to give lectures by noted abolitionist, Flora Howard, and May finds work on a small flatboat, Hugo and Helena’s Floating Theatre, as it cruises the border between the northern states and the southern slave-holding states.
May becomes indispensable to Hugo and his troupe, and all goes well until she sees her cousin again. Comfort and Mrs. Howard are also traveling down the Ohio River, speaking out against slavery at the many riverside towns. May owes Mrs. Howard a debt she cannot repay, and Mrs. Howard uses the opportunity to enlist May in her network of shadowy characters who help ferry slaves across the river to freedom. Lying has never come easy to May, but now she is compelled to break the law, deceive all her newfound friends, and deflect the rising suspicions of a slave catcher.
As May’s secrets become more tangled, the Floating Theatre readies for its biggest performance yet. May’s predicament could mean doom for her friends on board, including her beloved Hugo, unless she can figure out a way to entrap those who know her best. “Twain has his ‘Life on the Mississippi’. Conway’s life on the Ohio makes you see the place, through May’s eyes, in all its muddy glory” (New York Times Book Review).
BUY THE BOOK HERE
Category: How To and Tips, On Writing
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