Three Hours a Day

A successful short story writer once explained that she wrote a new short story every morning and edited a draft of an older story in the afternoon. This sounded like an admirably disciplined approach, and I’ve remembered this part of her talk for almost forty years. Recently an agent talked about his strategy for getting his clients to a six-figure salary. His advice was simple: writers should write three hours a day and work on marketing three hours a day. Like many of the other writers on the zoom program, I wondered if this was sustainable.

 

When I begin a new novel, I set a word quota for the day and usually reach it. My basic goal is 1,500 words, but the day’s results may range from 800 to 2500 words. For this year’s NaNoWriMo I logged in 48k words over the month (and after taking off most weekends). But I did not always write for three hours. I compose by scene, any one of which can be long or short but always moves me forward as I want, allowing for surprises, digressions, corrections and additions to earlier scenes. But the question of time doesn’t arise.

 

With the idea of time nagging at me, I decided to try a week of writing for three hours each morning. Because of other commitments, I couldn’t commit to three hours of marketing in the afternoon, and will set that aside for another time. (Any excuse will do to get out of three hours of marketing.)

 

I began my three-hour commitment on Monday morning. How am I doing? So far I’m four for four—four short stories written over four mornings, spending three hours each morning doing nothing but writing fiction. 

 

What have I learned? The time pressure changed my process. Sunday evening I began wondering what I’d write the next day since I’m not working on a novel (that would have been easy). In a file of short story ideas I found one that had been rattling around in my head without any sense of urgency. But once I knew I’d be writing soon the story began to feel warm, taking shape. At ten in the morning I was on my way, and at one o’clock, I was done, with a three-thousand word story. I set it aside to marinade, as it were, for revising at a later date. 

 

On Monday evening I once again wondered what I would write in the morning. Would my discipline dry up? I had a vague idea and held onto that through the evening. In the morning I went to work and after three hours had another three-thousand word story by one o’clock. Wednesday and today, Thursday, went the same with an idea in the previous evening and a three-hour sprint in the morning. Today my story is only twenty-five hundred words so I’m writing this blog to fill out the time.

 

The difference between this challenge and my regular approach to short stories is time. I don’t usually put myself under pressure to develop a story on a certain day at a certain hour. I prefer to take the time to think about it, let it take shape, and write it when I feel ready. The challenge has made me much more prolific, at least as far as short fiction is concerned, and I now have four stories to polish and send out. By tomorrow lunchtime I may have a fifth. I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to try for a second week. I’ll let you know. 

 

 

The History of a New Book

For participation in a book group I usually buy a copy of the book so I don’t have to worry about renewing it with the library or returning it to a friend. For a group beginning this month I ordered the title from one of my favorite second-hand sellers. Four years old, this copy was listed as “like new.” When I unwrapped it, and began riffling through the pages, I was convinced the book was brand new, unread. 

 

The easiest way to evaluate the newness of a trade paperback book is the binding and cover. There is no sign the cover was even opened—no fold or crease along the edge of the spine front or back, no wrinkle in the spine, and the tightness of the pages intact.

 

The only sign that the book had been opened was the inscription on the half-title page: “To Molly, Hope you appreciate this book as much as we do. Love to you! David & Marti 1-’17.” Some readers don’t like finding inscriptions or notes on any book they buy, even when they know it’s second hand and likely to come with a few. Not me. I’m curious about where the book has been and who left their reactions and additions hidden among the paragraphs. But in this one I won’t find anything.

 

It looks like Molly didn’t even open the book to check the contents, scan the first page of the first chapter, or read the acknowledgments at the back. Except for the inscription, the book looks and feels pristine. 

 

This kind of discovery of something purchased second hand shouldn’t surprise anyone today—so many books circulate through libraries and online bookstores that we all get brand-new copies occasionally. But this one surprised me because the person who gave it as a gift clearly loved it, and gave it to someone thought to be a kindred spirit.

 

So what book is it? This week I’m beginning a group discussing When Awareness Becomes Natural: A Guide to Cultivating Mindfulness in Everyday Life, by Sayadaw U Tejaniya (from Shambala Publications). 

 

I’ve been trying to recall if I have ever so misjudged a friend with the book or other gift I’ve passed along. Friends and I are quick to share what we like to read (or eat or see on TV), but there are sure to be pockets of surprises for me as well as for them.

 

So, as I ponder this book’s limping arrival in my life, I’ll wonder about Molly and what she disliked on sight about this book. Or if she ever ran into David and Marti and had to tell them no, she didn’t love the book as much as they did. Or did she just say yes, she read it but now she’s forgotten what it was about? This is for all practical purposes a new book but it already has a history--as a brand-new book in a bookstore, as a gift to Molly, as a reject in a second-hand bookstore, and now as my ticket into a zoom book group. I’ll be thinking of Molly and her friends as I read. And I'll be wondering at the irony of her rejecting this book in particular, a book with the theme of mindfulness or awareness of the reality we are immersed in daily.