To start out, I would like to point out that even if a person is a full time writer they are not actually writing full time. They might be working full time on things related to getting the writing done. But, writing is, sadly, a much smaller part of getting the piece done than most people realize. On a good day, a writer might get an hour of actual writing done. On a really good day, two hours. There are rare days when you get three good hours of writing done. But, then you are spent and worthless for anything else.
Two obvious competitors for your writing time are rewriting and editing. I don't think there are any canonical definitions to explain the difference between these two. But, in my mind, rewriting involves substantive changes while editing focuses more style and grammar. Personally, I find it difficult to switch between these three modes (writing, rewriting, editing). So, I usually focus on one for any given day at the expense of the others.
Unless you write by hand and then hand it off to somebody, there are endless technical problems, some of which I have grumbled about before such as converting a document to Kindle format, or dictating hand written notes into a MS Word document. This blog entry is an example of the kinds of technical problems that crop up. I have drafts of several months worth of blog posts which I finish up when I need to post something. I do this so I don't have to start from scratch each month and come up with an idea. Something happened to this draft. I am not sure what. I know that Google changed the interface, although I don't see how that would affect it. But, somehow it got garbled. Perhaps, I was possessed by a demon one day and garbled it myself. Maybe I did a poor job of dictating. Whatever happened, some chunks were missing.
Some tasks associated with writing are even more difficult for people who do not write to understand. For example, if I am trying to figure out something like a plot turn, or a character element, or the best way to explain something, I will need some time to think about it. But, this isn't the same kind of thinking you might apply to selecting a stock to buy or how to balance your budget. It is almost nonthinking. I will usually stop and do something entirely unrelated to what I am writing until an inspiration occurs to me. (Surprisingly, it always does although the amount of time required varies greatly) Let's say I decide to vacuum the living room while I ruminate on a style issue, which brings us neatly back to the point of this post. If someone were to call me on the phone and ask what I was doing at the moment, what should I say. Should I say I am vacuuming (a task which can easily be interrupted) or should I say I am writing (a task that can be ruined by stopping at the wrong time).
Moving on from the grumbling and refocusing on style, it took me a while to find my style for The Meaning of Life. Ultimately, after agonizing over it for longer than I wanted to, I came up with the following.
I decided to keep my essays short, roughly 300 to 700 words, with an average word count of about 400. I think this worked well for that book, but did not work at all well for Predicting the Future. But, nothing is wasted. I have several hundred short essays which I wrote over several years for writing practice. I will select some of the best, punch them up a bit and release a collection of 100 or so in a volume entitled Things that Passed Through My Mind, or something like that. That won't be for a couple of years as I have several things in the pipeline. But, that is how I work. I always plan way ahead.
I also decided that I want the essays to be accessible and never pretentious although if I have to use a big word or a complex sentence to represent a complex idea I will do so. I am going to stick with this idea in other books as well as some fiction I am working on. I am not writing for scholars. I had enough of that as an academic. Having said that, I try to write for people who have different levels of interest. So, most of my essays and hopefully my upcoming stories will be interesting to people who want to enjoy more than think. But, I don't want to turn off people looking for something deeper, so I try to have things for them too. In the essays, there are comments along the way which most readers will just ignore. But, some will see them as pointers to something more. In the fiction, there should be a good story for those that only care about entertainment. But, there should also be deeper levels such as symbolism, metaphor and meaning for those who are looking for more.
I like to begin with a strong, often provocative, opening sentence that will make the reader want to read more. I try to end each essay with a sentence that will give you the reader something to think about which hopefully is what the reader will do before reading the next. If the essays are related the last line in one should link in to or create interest in the next.
I have finished the first draft of Predicting the Future and it resembles this style with the exception that it is chapters of about 2000 words each and hence a longer volume. But, I am still not writing for experts. Currently, I have several book ideas that will be more like Predicting the Future. However, this 300-700 word model will still be useful. I have about 300-400 more essays written in the same style as The Meaning of Life. When the mood strikes me, I will start to package the better ones into short topical volumes of about 50-100 essays each which will sell for 99 cents as a Kindle book. Although I do like long books (Stephen King's The Stand and James Michner's Hawaii come to mind) it think short books for a buck are the way of the future, sort of back to the days of Penny Dreadful.
Two obvious competitors for your writing time are rewriting and editing. I don't think there are any canonical definitions to explain the difference between these two. But, in my mind, rewriting involves substantive changes while editing focuses more style and grammar. Personally, I find it difficult to switch between these three modes (writing, rewriting, editing). So, I usually focus on one for any given day at the expense of the others.
Unless you write by hand and then hand it off to somebody, there are endless technical problems, some of which I have grumbled about before such as converting a document to Kindle format, or dictating hand written notes into a MS Word document. This blog entry is an example of the kinds of technical problems that crop up. I have drafts of several months worth of blog posts which I finish up when I need to post something. I do this so I don't have to start from scratch each month and come up with an idea. Something happened to this draft. I am not sure what. I know that Google changed the interface, although I don't see how that would affect it. But, somehow it got garbled. Perhaps, I was possessed by a demon one day and garbled it myself. Maybe I did a poor job of dictating. Whatever happened, some chunks were missing.
Some tasks associated with writing are even more difficult for people who do not write to understand. For example, if I am trying to figure out something like a plot turn, or a character element, or the best way to explain something, I will need some time to think about it. But, this isn't the same kind of thinking you might apply to selecting a stock to buy or how to balance your budget. It is almost nonthinking. I will usually stop and do something entirely unrelated to what I am writing until an inspiration occurs to me. (Surprisingly, it always does although the amount of time required varies greatly) Let's say I decide to vacuum the living room while I ruminate on a style issue, which brings us neatly back to the point of this post. If someone were to call me on the phone and ask what I was doing at the moment, what should I say. Should I say I am vacuuming (a task which can easily be interrupted) or should I say I am writing (a task that can be ruined by stopping at the wrong time).
Moving on from the grumbling and refocusing on style, it took me a while to find my style for The Meaning of Life. Ultimately, after agonizing over it for longer than I wanted to, I came up with the following.
I decided to keep my essays short, roughly 300 to 700 words, with an average word count of about 400. I think this worked well for that book, but did not work at all well for Predicting the Future. But, nothing is wasted. I have several hundred short essays which I wrote over several years for writing practice. I will select some of the best, punch them up a bit and release a collection of 100 or so in a volume entitled Things that Passed Through My Mind, or something like that. That won't be for a couple of years as I have several things in the pipeline. But, that is how I work. I always plan way ahead.
I also decided that I want the essays to be accessible and never pretentious although if I have to use a big word or a complex sentence to represent a complex idea I will do so. I am going to stick with this idea in other books as well as some fiction I am working on. I am not writing for scholars. I had enough of that as an academic. Having said that, I try to write for people who have different levels of interest. So, most of my essays and hopefully my upcoming stories will be interesting to people who want to enjoy more than think. But, I don't want to turn off people looking for something deeper, so I try to have things for them too. In the essays, there are comments along the way which most readers will just ignore. But, some will see them as pointers to something more. In the fiction, there should be a good story for those that only care about entertainment. But, there should also be deeper levels such as symbolism, metaphor and meaning for those who are looking for more.
I like to begin with a strong, often provocative, opening sentence that will make the reader want to read more. I try to end each essay with a sentence that will give you the reader something to think about which hopefully is what the reader will do before reading the next. If the essays are related the last line in one should link in to or create interest in the next.
I have finished the first draft of Predicting the Future and it resembles this style with the exception that it is chapters of about 2000 words each and hence a longer volume. But, I am still not writing for experts. Currently, I have several book ideas that will be more like Predicting the Future. However, this 300-700 word model will still be useful. I have about 300-400 more essays written in the same style as The Meaning of Life. When the mood strikes me, I will start to package the better ones into short topical volumes of about 50-100 essays each which will sell for 99 cents as a Kindle book. Although I do like long books (Stephen King's The Stand and James Michner's Hawaii come to mind) it think short books for a buck are the way of the future, sort of back to the days of Penny Dreadful.
