Neil Gaiman said it best.

Welcome, 2012!

Best artistic advice

Do something. Do anything.

- by Sean Ferrell

Jane Friedman's Secret to Finding Time

How she makes time to write, blog, market, promote, travel, speak, and teach at a university.

-- From Writer Unboxed

Interview with Tana French

Mostly I love Tana French's writing (although I had big issues with the unanswered questions in In the Woods). She has a new book coming out, which I'll read as soon as it hits the shelves.

GoodReads interview with Tana French.

Up and at 'em

I’m working on a novel, my second one. I’ve been circling the project all summer, with a plan in mind to start when school started back. This was my plan for two reasons. One, my son would be back in school, making things much quieter the three days a week I’m at home. And two, back to school time feels like time for new beginnings.

Until then, I prepared. I sketched out an outline. I filled in that outline. I wrote ideas for scenes. I wrote out descriptions of characters, even the minor ones, their middle names and favorite gift they got from Santa Claus.

I set a goal of 1,300 words a day, five days a week. I met or exceeded that goal for a whole week.

Writing those 1,300 words was how I started my day. I didn’t read blogs or look at Facebook until I’d gotten in that word count. I found myself thinking things like, “When you want to write, you find a way.” and “There’s no such thing as no such time. Make the time.”

I must have been practicing my speech for writer’s conferences.

I went merrily on my way with my 1,300 words a day right up until the point when the real world interfered. My son was home sick one day, I spent a day out of town at a doctor’s appointment, another day out of town with my mother, a Saturday spent enjoying time with my brother and his wife. Tons of homework to help my son with every afternoon, cooking dinner, commitments at church. You know…life. Suddenly, I didn’t have the time.

And kind of wanted to shake that smug girl with her smug writer’s conferences thoughts.

Over the last week and a half I may have written a combined 2,600. Maybe more, I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like I have. It feels like the world is on roller skates and I’m standing still, wanting to jump in and roller skate, too, but can’t get my bearings to even get started.

Friday morning while doing some longhand writing I realized that I’d fallen back to an old sensibility, that mindset of all or nothing.

Since I didn’t have a block of time available to write 1,300 words, I didn’t write any. That is crazy talk.

Today promises to be busy, as does pretty much every day for the two next week, possibly two weeks. I can write something to carry the story forward, even if it moves only a small amount. If it’s just 500 words. Or 100 words. It’s something, and every little bit counts.

The main thing is keeping that forward momentum. I’m doubly thankful now that I did the legwork this summer of outlines and character sketches. They make it much easier to dive in here and there as I can.

School is in full swing and I don’t get a pass for doing nothing. Just keep plugging away.

Literary Hero

On my bookcase is a shelf dedicated to my favorite books, the luscious reads that took me away, the ones I was sorry to see come to an end. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett is on that shelf.

Patchett has a new one out and I can't wait to read it. Little about it is the typical kind of book I enjoy, but neither was Bel Canto.

You've probably heard she is opening a bookstore. She may be my hero.

What's interesting about this interview is her writing process; she breaks that rule we've probably all heard to write every day. It reminds me that everyone has a different set of guidelines that work for her. That reassures, while surely being obvious. We're all different so naturally different ways of writing and practicing work for us.

Like Nike

For weeks, I have been meaning to post about the book signing where Andre Dubus, III read from his memoir, Townie. I had to leave early so I didn’t get to meet him but after listening to him answer questions and talk about writing and his background, I felt like I knew him.

The book was incredible. Dubus was, for lack of a zingier word, nice. He seemed like a genuine person, the kind you’d enjoy hanging out with. I wanted to write the post about him, about his book.

Why haven’t I? I wrote down a few notes during the reading but the notes weren’t “good enough.” I didn’t know what to say. My idea wasn’t “good enough.”

This is an example of perfect being the enemy of the good. I wanted the idea, not to mention the execution, to be brilliant and meaningful right out of the gate. If it wasn’t, then what was the use of trying, right?

It’s an easy mentality to get into and a hard one to get out of.

In the spirit of busting through, the jumble of notes I took:

Every time you write what is true, every time, you get closer to writing what you didn’t know. (He was quoting Grace Paley. I think what he said was that the when you write true, you discover things that you didn’t know that you knew.)

Truth is the only thing that transfers a feeling from one heart to another.

Writing is bridging the distance from one person to another.
About his memoir of growing up in Massachusetts mill town:

I love that town. I love that I’m from there.


Next time, I won’t slink around for two months because my notes and my idea wasn’t good enough. I’ll take a deep breath and just do it.

Isn’t that what writing is always like?