Right now I’m roughing out this chapter in longhand while sitting in a straight chair next to my eighty-eight-year-old mother’s bed in the ICU at Blake Medical Center in Bradenton, Florida. An ultrasound technician is making pictures of her kidneys with a portable machine. Having done all I could for my mother this morning, I realized I could work right here as she dozes and gains strength.
And I’m writing and thinking about a writer’s time and space. Literature abounds with examples of writers locking themselves away in garrets—
Wait. What the hell is a garret, exactly?
An attic. Attics are places where you can be alone—hidden, even—and no one will bother you. That’s usually because nobody wants to climb that ladder or tricky narrow staircase just to tell you about the iguana they just saw recite the Pledge of Allegiance on YouTube.
For our purposes, garrets are real places, but they are also infinitely movable, changeable, and adaptable to our needs. Every writer needs a garret. This is beyond a room of one’s own, so lovingly described and honored by Virginia Woolf in her book by the same title. A room of one’s own is fine: a place that’s yours, where you can go to do your own thing. However, an intruder who presumes that his need to talk to you is more important than your need to write, can knock on the door of your room. Even if unanswered, the knock itself is an intrusion.
Therefore, such a room is beside the point. What a writer needs is psychic isolation, a mental place where you can focus on what you want to do without much chance of interruption.
The idea of a garret is perfect for our purposes. The garret, there beneath the peak of the roof where the rain pounds loud, the place equal in height to the streaming eaves, is the place where nobody with important business goes. It’s the place that’s hard to get to, the place that says, “If somebody’s writing up there, they must really want to do it.”
I don’t have a garret. Will the basement do?
I will say basements can be depressing. The summer after getting my first university degree, I wrote in the unfinished basement of my ancestral home, and it was just plain awful. No windows, no natural light, cold, musty. I came to realize how great garrets, real garrets are. You’re warm, you might have a little window, and even though it’s probably musty, you’re literally above it all.
If you have access to an attic garret, grab it. Try it out. Not everybody, however, has such a place. Plus, we writers sometimes travel, and a physical-world garret is not portable.
Therefore we must create our garrets.
In order to do this, we must realize that the garret is 1) a frame of mind, coupled with 2) a workable physical space. The world abounds with such spaces. Therefore, you can make and take your garret with you.
This is tremendously freeing.
Your personal garret might be:
Stephen King wrote his first novel, Carrie, in the laundry room of his single-wide trailer. If you’ve ever been in a single-wide, you’ll know that its laundry room is a spot tighter than an ant farm. But it was his garret. He made it work!
CHISEL IT IN STONE:
WHEN TO WRITE? NOW.
WHERE TO WRITE? HERE.
As I said above, a writer’s garret is first a frame of mind. The physical space matters as well.
Quiet, however, is not always necessary. Some writers find a little white noise to be helpful, but a lack of disturbances is prime. The definition of ‘disturbances’ for our purpose is anything from your ordinary life or routine that can grab your attention. Sometimes these things lurk.
The phone is one, but just about anything at home can do it. The computer, needless to say. The quickly growing lawn. The list of stuff to do that you got partway through and then put down. The curling wallpaper seam. The preparation of lunch. Beware the crossword puzzle in the bathroom. Then there’s your kids, or your little siblings, spouse, parent, the cat, the dog, the parakeet.
I live alone, so I don’t really need a garret. I can just sit at my table and—
Listen.
Every.
Writer.
Needs.
A.
Garret.
I lived alone for years, sometimes in a simple studio apartment with few possessions. But I used a coffee shop as a garret. Why? Because of writing enemies in my apartment: The stack of unopened mail; the friend I owed a call to; the jeans that needed a patch before I could wear them again; the last of those tasty potato chips. And on and on.
No wonder ‘anywhere out of the house’ equals a garret for so many of us writers. Now I have a home office and work there a lot, but often I have to get the hell out. The landline rings. The voicemail gets it but I sit there hearing it ring and wonder who’s calling and when I can call them back …
My garret, as I began this chapter, was that chair in that hospital room. (By the way, my mother recovered from that illness.)
A regular garret is a good thing to have. You might find yourself gravitating to one or two regular garrets. If you’re lucky enough to live near a beach or a terrific park, you can write there. Bring a folding chair or spread a blanket.
Coffee shops are just great for writers, for so many reasons, but resist all temptations to connect to the Internet. I rarely bring my laptop to a coffee shop, preferring to write longhand. In a coffee bar it’s so much easier to block out distractions like some song you don’t admire or the conversation next to you, because these things are not personal to you, unlike your ringing phone or seductive significant other.
I might add that you can feed off of lots of the stimulation of a coffee bar. Besides the lovely hit of caffeine (or theobromine, if you do hot chocolate instead of coffee) and the heavenly aromas, you can eavesdrop and learn a lot about writing realistic dialogue. (See Chapter Seventeen, Eavesdrop!) You can use the creative energy of the music coming over the sound system, no matter what kind it is. You can feed off the personalities of the staff.
Anywhere you go to write, feed off the ambient energy: the cars and people going by on the street, the vibes of the books in the stacks, the vitality of the very air currents on your face. Grab the vibes at your local burger biggie. The snacky cache.
And in any eatery, always be sure to buy at least a beverage. Be nice to the crew; make it so they smile when they see you coming. If you come in frequently, consume some comestibles and tip decently, you’ll make friends with the staff. When you’re friends with the staff or owner, sometimes they give you free stuff. Besides, even if the business is a chain, like Starbucks, and even if you’re against chains or Starbucks in particular, it’s not right to take advantage. Anything you do to take away sales (like hogging a table for hours without buying anything) will not harm headquarters and shareholders. The brunt will be borne by the local employees.
To me, caffeine is a wonder drug, boosting brainpower and energy. If you use it, use it wisely. I try to save it for when I’m really settling down to work on important, original writing. When I need to be at my peak.
Otherwise, I dial it down by drinking pale tea.
Here’s another angle. Your garret can be the busiest room of the house—if you’re there when nobody else is. Getting up before dawn, sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of something hot, you’ve found your garret. Or your garret might be a hot bath. Bring your materials and write for thirty minutes until the water cools.
Make your environment comfortable however you can. My friend Jamie Morris, a stellar editor and writing teacher, has learned that having food nearby helps her students relax and focus better. Even having something as simple as a bottle of water and a packet of nuts or crackers gives you a sense of adequacy and comfort. No anxiety. You’re OK.
So you see, your garret is the space you’re claiming right now for your writing. Long term or just for this hour! It’s good. It’s safe for writing. It’s yours and it’s glorious.
Claim it. Write in it.
Write yourself a permission slip to do whatever the hell you want. To go anywhere and write. For fun. For serious. Sign your own permission slip.
Garret mode is the frame of mind when you’re in a good physical place and you’re ready to write. To enter garret mode, simply choose to free your mind from worry and inner babble. Say to yourself, “I’m ready to write.” Bam, you’re in garret mode.
You can bring your own portable music device, but I find it distracting to listen to anything that competes with the ambient music and sounds of your surroundings. It’s good for your concentration to write in a public place and deal with the sounds, sights, smells, feels. Your concentration improves under such stimuli. This carries tremendous advantages, along the lines of Buddha’s admonition to meditate on Main Street, for if you can meditate while sitting next to the busiest road in town, you’ll be able to carry your peaceful core everywhere. Ultimate liberation!
Most important is making time for your writing.
Just as you claim space by creating your garret wherever you choose, claim your time to write.
I know what you’re thinking. Go ahead, say it.
OK. I don’t have enough time to write.
Listen to this.
I used to go to an inventor’s group where people discussed their ideas and shared strategies. (Everybody signed a confidentiality agreement.) At those meetings I learned a central truth of inventing:
Ideas are a dime a dozen.
It’s development and execution that separates the moguls from the chumps. And I realized that this is a profound truth in life. And of course there is a direct parallel to writing. Having an idea for a book is a terrific thing. The thing that gets your idea from dream to bound volume is simple execution, word by word, sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter.
Some writing coaches feel you need to set an inviolate time, to write routinely, and to adhere to a specific schedule, or you’ll get annihilated. The trouble with that is, the first time you skip a session—whether due of necessity or a passing attack of laziness—you tend to feel like a failure. “Ah hell, I’ve blown it. I’ve just proved I’m not a professional: I don’t have the discipline I need.”
And then you feel like you have to promise yourself even harder that you’ll write in your regular time slot from now on without fail … which sets you up for more unhappiness and more ridiculous, unproductive self-talk.
That is all bullshit.
Do you see how perfectionism is your enemy? Remember “Perfect is the enemy of good”? You are perfectly good the way you are.
Here’s the well-guarded secret held by every professional writer: None of us are as productive as we feel we should be. None of us writes as much or as regularly as we know we ought.
But we write where we can and when we can. We strive to be reasonable with our inner selves. We don’t wait until conditions are ‘right’. We bring our garrets with us—very light bundles, actually!—just about everywhere we go. We enter garret mode easily.
CHISEL IT IN STONE:
TIME IS NOT THE POINT. PRODUCTIVITY IS.
Good time slots for writing:
Wait, go back. What’s a heartbrain?
The mysterious, writerly core of you is your heartbrain. More than brain, more than heart. It’s where your magic lives.
Make this mental shift: Write constantly, and squeeze in life around the edges. It’s a simple but powerful shift. As you can see, getting a book written is a matter of priorities. Give writing a high priority, and you’ll find yourself making excuses to drop other stuff like sitting in front of the television or dicking around on the computer.
WRITE LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.
BECAUSE IT DOES.
When you start writing regularly, your life opens like a great vista: It becomes richer, bigger, more beautiful, more compelling.
Now, what about this concept of ‘time,’ anyway?
For all writers, word count is gold. Getting the words down is gold. Sitting there staring at your paper for an hour because you can’t think of something good to write is demoralizing.
Commit yourself to a minimum word count per session and start writing. Or you could do a minimum page count.
Aim low.
What? I thought I was here to reach high goals!
You are. I’m your champion and I want you to reach the heights. But this is one case where aiming low is essential.
In the early stages of writing, set yourself a goal of 200 words per writing session. That’s not a lot. The beauty of aiming for low output is when you arrive at your minimum, if you’re fascinated by what you’re doing, you’ll keep going. This will happen naturally. You’ll see.
If you’re anxious about your word count as you go along, count the words on every page of writing after you finish it. You’ll soon get a feel for how many words you typically write per page. Then you can just count pages to get to your goal.
Today, the word-count issue is nonexistent thanks to the word processing software that comes with your computer. You’ll see a running total at the bottom of your screen. I love that feature.
When you’ve reached your minimum or beyond and you sense that you’re at a good stopping point, stop. You’ve achieved your writing goal for the day and you’re entitled to feel good.
No matter how tempting it is, do not get more rigid or self-demanding than that about your writing routine. If you miss a day or two—or a week or two—be at ease in your heartbrain.
Simply persist. Gather your writing materials at the next opportunity, enter garret mode, and pick up where you left off—or try another direction. Write your minimum, and write it where you can, when you can. Without stress, without self-drama. Small pieces of writing will add up quickly over time. Never mourn lost time.
As you get used to it, you can set your daily word-count goal higher. Most professionals write between 1,000 and 2,000 words per day. You can boost your output to 5,000 or even 10,000 words in one marathon day. Select your day and plan for high output. Before you begin, eliminate distractions, take care of pending business, and get your food and supplies lined up. On Marathon Day, start early. Don’t go on line or screw around with anything but original writing, going forward, always forward. Take short breaks every hour, and pour it out.
That’s not a pace you can sustain every day (at least if you want to turn out quality work), but you can do it now and then, when you really want to kick it into high gear.
As you see, a writer’s best strategy isn’t rigidity. It’s flexibility combined with persistence.
What if my writing seems fragmented, with all these little bits and pieces?
That’s OK. Trust the process. When we write freely, stuff goes on deep within us that’s wiser than we know. Eventually, fragments will either be thrown off or absorbed into the whole during rereading and making-it-better.
I’m serious about writing, and my job gets in the way. If I quit my job, I’d have the large blocks of time I feel I need to get my book done. Should I take the leap?
I remember being a corporate executive, riding in an elevator to some meeting, thinking about the insane hours I was working and about the novel I’d started four years earlier. I thought, I know of ten ways I can make that manuscript better, but I don’t have ten minutes to do it.
Since I was in position for a big promotion, that moment led me to ask the Great Question in life: What do you want carved on your tombstone?
As it happens, I intend to be cremated, but somebody might put up a marker. At that moment, I felt my choices were two:
SHE WAS AN EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT.
or
SHE WENT FOR IT.
I went for it.
I quit my job and wrote fiction full-time. However, it took four years for me to find a leading house (there were no digital publishing programs yet) that wanted to publish my book. It was a tough, poverty-strewn road. I went from an income of $90,000 per year to nothing, for years. I had some savings, but they got used up, and I was fortunate to have a life partner who willingly supplemented my meager income.
I had to do it, I felt a strong compulsion to do it.
You have to listen to your heartbrain.
It’s a challenging situation either way. It’s challenging to write on a tight timeline without a regular income, and it’s challenging to try to fit in writing around your regular employment.
There is a third way.
Do you get paid vacation or unpaid leave?
Take a week of it and set yourself up in a cheap getaway—an off-season vacation rental, like Florida in summer or Ohio in winter, or a motel right in your town. The point is to get out of your normal home and take a Garret Vacation.
Bring your writing materials, comfortable clothes, and healthful snackies. Make yourself a little garret. Write intensely there. See how much you can get done. You can do a 10,000-word day, or you can set yourself a 10,000-word week.
You’ll get a lot done.
The Garret Vacation can be taken repeatedly, using hunks of time as you get them—a weekend, a four-day holiday, two weeks, you decide.
If your garret is boring, fine. Just as a too-noisy writing environment will teach you how to block out distractions, a dull, unstimulating one will prompt you to dive more deeply into the world you’re writing about.
Focus and execute.
You can also take a few months off your regular work. If you have some savings and don’t mind a little risk, ask your boss for unpaid leave. If that won’t work, you can quit, write for a while, and then get another job if you need to.
Would-be writers are consistently told to keep their day jobs. I say, listen to your heartbrain. As long as you have a good survival plan and can keep up whatever financial responsibilities you have, do what you feel driven to do. If you make plenty of money with your writing, great! If not, you’ll find employment to pay the bills. If another job doesn’t come right away, maybe you’ll go through some hardship. That’s the risk. But you won’t die. And you’ll probably keep writing.
I’m retired with an adequate income. But I still have trouble finding time to write.
Chores, recreation, and sleeve-tugging spouses expand to fill your time. Get tough with all of it.
Make a list of stuff that takes up your time. Look at each item and ask, “Is this necessary? How necessary?”
Eliminate the bullshit stuff and cut back your commitment to semi-bullshit stuff. Make your significant-other time count. (Watching television together doesn’t count and can be cut back.) Claim your writing time. No one cares about your writing as much as you do.
I have small kids. What do I do?
Successful writing moms I’ve talked with advise four strategies:
It’s more fun being a healthy, fit writer than a sluggardly one. Slugs tend to get depressed from eating crap, drinking too much alcohol, using drugs, or downloading too much porn.
A strong mind doesn’t make your body stronger, but a strong body strengthens your mind. You become more confident. You are all one thing.
Your writing life will be more fun if you: