Some Things Sacrificed: Writing Discipline

Some things get sacrificed when you’re writing a book. That’s because 1) there are only 24 hours in a day; and 2) many of us are yet unproven and are doing this on the side in our free time. If things are not being sacrificed, then we are not working hard enough on our craft. No pain, no gain. That’s just how the universe got made. Forces are exerted, and particles and waves react based on the perspective and properties of the forces, particles and waves. You can’t sit on your ass in this life. You literally won’t get anything out of it. You can’t expect to write when you happen to have free time. Time is not gifted. It is made.

Stephen King, in On Writing, says to write seven days a week. He says do not make exceptions. Maybe holidays, I don’t remember. The point is do not expect to get better if you are not making a continuous, rigorous effort. King obviously knows what he is talking about.

I do not write every day, but I write roughly the same amount each week. I think that is very important. Have a set schedule and/or a quota of minutes per day, hours per week, or words per day that you force yourself to hit. However you set your quota, do not settle for less. You will miss it at times—life happens—but you should surpass it more than you miss it.

For the last eighteen or so years, I have written three or four days a week for three hours per session. Three days is the minimum. If I do not hit three, I start to jones, and I probably get grumpy and annoyed at whatever or whoever stood in my way. The real target is four, and I’ve done four most of the time over the past three years. I wake up at 2:30am (on average) to write. Sounds extreme, but I am asleep by 8:30pm virtually every night. On writing days, I get a roughly six hours and on non-writing days eight to nine. It’s the same thing as staying up until midnight and waking up at six, eight or nine. I just find I am fresher in the morning, and I don’t want to consume caffeine a couple of hours before bed.

My top four priorities in life are my immediate family, work, sleep and writing. I have a wife and two kids. I want and need to spend time with them. They want and need to spend time with me. I want to and need to do a good job at work. I have to sleep. I have to write. Writing takes away from the other three. Because I write, I spend less time with my wife and kids, get less sleep, and work slightly less than I would if I was not writing. Those three things get sacrificed a bit, but only a bit, because they are top priorities. What gets sacrificed the most is everything else.

“Everything else” can include some extremely important people and stuff. For me it includes, first and foremost, friends, co-workers (also my friends) and family who are not my wife and kids. I have made a staunch habit of turning down drinks after work, for example. I've been doing it for years, even pre-kids, with very few exceptions. I would love to have drinks after work and further develop relationships with co-workers. I choose not to, because that will affect my sleep, which will affect my writing. Or it will eat into time with my wife and kids, which is already curtailed because I write. Often when visiting family for a weekend, I will hang out one night but will go to bed when my kids do the other night and wake up to write. In a perfect world, I would hang out both nights. I love my family and don’t like saying no to them. I simply have to if I want to meet my writing quota, which I have to do if I want to get better at writing. And the following is very important: meeting my quota is not a matter of punching a time clock. It’s satisfying a need. It’s helping maintain my sanity through self-expression. Do I love writing more than my friends and family? No. Would I choose it over them if I had to drop one? I doubt it. I’d be nothing without relationships. But it’s not that simple.

I love watching sports. I love watching shows and movies. They inspire me. But if I stay up later than normal, even if I am not waking up to write the next day, that will sap energy that I will need later, because I am operating very close to if not at full capacity. This is a marathon. I need as much energy as possible when I write (and work and spend time with my wife and kids). I can’t be zonked and expect to be creative. So watching gets sacrificed. My wife also loves to watch. Watching with her gets sacrificed. Listening to music and reading do not. I make time for both (see here for a blog about music and idea generation).

When my wife and kids are away, I rarely watch, and I rarely hang out with friends. That is an opportunity to go to bed extra early, wake up extra early and write a bit more. When I travel for work, I rarely go out for drinks or dinner with coworkers, and I rarely meet up with friends. I feel bad about that. I would love to. But travel is not a reason not to meet my quota. Because I have a dream.

When on family vacations, I sometimes take the entire time off from writing, but it depends. And vacations can be great, distraction-free times to write. I took four months off from writing after each of my kids was born. It took about that long to get them sleeping mostly through the night, and/or to the point where my wife no longer required my assistance. Which brings me to a final critical issue: if time with people gets sacrificed, then we need the support of those people. My kids haven’t really noticed, because time with them gets sacrificed the least. I spend a lot of time with my wife, but I would spend a lot more if I wasn’t writing. The rest of my family have been extremely understanding. I think my coworkers and friends also get it.

In summary, in my experience you need to make time, and you need to make it every week. If you want to be one of the greats, like King, you may need to make it every day. If you don’t make enough time one week, you should feel annoyed or pissed and make it up the next week. Books need to flow, and I think it’s hard to create flow if you’re not writing consistently.

Good luck, keep dreaming, and work hard.