Word After Word

“What writers want is time to write!” a brochure advertising a summer writing retreat exhorts.

No no no no no no no.

They do want time to write but it’s not what is needed.  What is needed is something to bound the work, a Square or other Shape. (For many writers, the workshop itself would be that shape, but it isn’t about time, it’s about space. Big difference.)

Most professors I know (but not all, such as the amazing gifted ND, but certainly me) greet a giant uninterrupted block of time with a strong vision for kitchen renovation and a new proclivity for napping, blogging, Wagner, etc.

I can work today because I have in front of me fifteen pages, printed out, which I dragged along in my purse yesterday on all the errands—the chicken store, the camera store, the garden shop (there is a monkey there, Mingo)—just in case there was downtime, like the car died or we were stuck behind a train for a couple of hours, and I had time to work. I kept the file open. Literally. I have the pages here on the desk, and I know what I am supposed to do today and how to do it, more or less.

Sarah asked me so how long do you have to work to get a star? It doesn’t matter how long I work, only that I do my best, bring my best concentration to the book that day. It might be ten minutes or it might be thirteen hours. Time doesn’t matter. Shape matters.

It doesn’t usually work to say “I will work for four hours a day this summer.” What works is to say “Tomorrow, I will work out the sequence of beats in the Schulers bookstore scene. Then, I need to sort my cards again for the scenes in Part Two. If I have time (which means energy for more concentrating), I can start the next scene.  There’s also all the little notes I took over the last 48 hours—in the tub, in the car, in the middle of the night—and I can feather in those little bits.” In my books, I call this “Wake Up Working.”

Rarely do I feel I am working hard enough. When I hear N and