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Solving your writing problems since 1998! |
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The
Writing Session
By Timothy Hallinan, author of The Fourth Watcher
Getting there Write 500 words a day, five days a week, and in
ten weeks you’ll have 25,000 words. That’s a quarter of a good-size novel.
At that pace, even with the inevitable wrong turns and backtracks, you’ll be
able to turn out a revised draft of your novel in a year. Tuning in Writing regularly and at some length also keeps
the world of your novel open to you. Annie Dillard once said that writing a book
is like taming a lion: the longer you stay out of the cage, the more dangerous
it is to go back in. Working regularly keeps that lion under control. Opening up Regular writing also brings the world of your
book into your non-writing life — and vice-versa. You’ll find yourself
thinking about the book even when you’re not writing. Everything you see or
hear will have some sort of relationship to your story. You’ll find yourself
asking, “Is this material or not?” “Is this what Judith would say in that
scene?” Driving down the street, doing dishes, taking a shower (especially
taking a shower) — you’ll have inspirations. Turning on the sorter There’s a little node in your brain called the reticular
activating system. It’s a sorter: it flips through the hundreds of
thousands of things you see, hear, read, and think every day, and it says, This
is important or This is junk. And it calls the
important things to your attention. The reticular activating system is why you
can hear your name spoken across a noisy room, or why, once you’ve decided to
buy a certain car, you suddenly see billboards and commercials for that car
everywhere. Those things were always there, but the reticular activating system
had been putting them in the junk pile. The universe has a vast amount of material to
offer you, free of charge, for your book. If you write regularly, you’ll
recognize that material when it comes along. It could, ultimately, be the thing
that either saves your book or takes it to a higher level. And finally Write regularly because it’s a privilege to be
able to do so. Write regularly for the love of challenging your creative spirit
to grow and flourish. Write regularly to experience the magic of a new world
coming into being at the ends of your fingers. Write regularly to strengthen
yourself against the despair of grunt work, dead dialog, and bad pages. And most
of all, write regularly in order to write better. And remember, the session you decide to blow off
today or tomorrow might be the most important session in the development of your
book. Ain’t no way to know except to do the session.
Timothy Hallinan
is the author of The
Fourth Watcher. He wrote songs and sang in a rock
band while in college, and many of his songs were recorded by well-known artists
including the platinum-selling group Bread. He began writing books while
enjoying a successful career in the television industry. Over the past
fourteen years he has been responsible for a number of well-reviewed novels and
a nonfiction book on Charles Dickens. For years he has taught a course on
“Finishing the Novel” with remarkable results – more than half his
students complete their first novel and go on to a second, and several have
been, or are about to be, published. Tim currently maintains a house in
Santa Monica,
California, and apartments in
Bangkok,
Thailand and
Phnom Penh,
Cambodia. He is lucky enough to be married to Munyin Choy-Hallinan. For additional
information on Timothy Hallinan visit www.timothyhallinan.com |
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