NO, not that kind of habit; your writing habit.
I was at a meeting today and Joe Harrington talked about how he tries to write for at least half an hour a day, whether it be criticism, creative work, etc. I think this is a good idea. A half hour seems like a nice piece of time to me. Even when things are getting insanely busy, midway through the semester, it seems reasonable. So, I was wondering if people would mind commenting on this post and writing a little bit about their writing habit?
Do you write every day? What is your ritual for writing? Is it centered around a certain place, or room? A certain time of day? I read an interview with Kim Stafford once, and the interviewer was asking him about his dad, who was legendary for getting up early every morning and forcing himself to write a poem a day. In the interview, Kim pointed out that this activity of hid dad's is often misunderstood. He explained that his dad made himself write a new poem each day, even if it was awful, because it made him feel like a working writer--as if he was actually being productive and honest with himself--and also so that his guilt about not writing wouldn't interfere with actually writing, every day. I really like this interview. For me, if I haven't written anything, or edited anything for a few days, or even a few weeks, if I'm traveling, I tend to feel so guilty that it's hard to get back into it. If I remember correctly, the other thing William Stafford is often quoted as saying about this early morning writing practice is that he liked sitting down to write something just after waking up, when his mind was fresh, or just having had a dream. Something along those lines.
For me, I write better in the mornings, but not just after I've woken up. It's better if I do something for a couple of hours, and then I work. That's why I like teaching morning classes. I wake up, then teach, then work. That seems to work best for me. I think that's my most productive time. I'm no good in the late afternoons or evenings. My wife is also a writer and she things I'm absolutely crazy to want to write in the mornings.
How about you? What are your ritual behaviors surrounding your writing life?
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I am definitely a morning-time writer. I usually make coffee first, maybe stretch a bit, and then, depending on the morning, either check my email or absolutely do not, go running or absolutely do not, etc. I also just write at, say, the dining room table near a window-- I did in Utah, and then I moved to Kansas and immediately started looking for a desk. It took me awhile to realize that I probably wouldn't use it for anything but storage anyway...
But maybe there is something to that--having a place dedicated to only writing. That way when someone walks in the room and sees you at that certain place, they know you're working. Plus the associations that develop on a cellular level and in your own head... I'd like to hear what everyone has to say about that...
Iris Moulton said...
August 20, 2009 at 6:35 AM
Writing is a habit. I try and write every day with varying levels of success. Usually I can write at least 500 words or maybe just a sentence or maybe I can write a lot if I get cooking and skip lunch. This last is almost always a bad idea. I have an office upstairs in my house where I can work but some days I'll go out and write in the world at a park or at Wescoe or at a coffee shop.
I think what really matters is how you feel about writing. This is kind of unclear, but stay with me for a moment. Is writing emotionally healthy for you as a person? For example, Hemingway once wrote in a letter to Malcolm Cowley, "Do you suffer when you write? I don't at all. Suffer like a bastard when I don't write, or just before, and feel empty and fucked out afterward. But I never feel as good as while writing."
People's routines are very interesting, but to my way of thinking, what's really interesting is not how we write, exactly, but that we do write and are driven to write again the next day.
What's up with that?
So I'd like to pose a question. How about everyone else in the Bathtub? Are you like Joseph Conrad and Douglas Adams -- that is, do you suffer when you write? Or do you suffer like a bastard when you don't write?
Ben said...
August 20, 2009 at 3:45 PM
The first time I tried to quit smoking, I read an article that said that the key to success was not getting mad at yourself when you cheated and had a cigarette, but to just try to wake up every morning still believing that quitting smoking was a good idea.
I thought that was pretty good advice so now I spend a lot of time each morning staring at my ceiling listing things that I still believe are good ideas, like, quitting smoking, eating vegetables, drinking enough water, washing all the dishes and not just the one that I want to use at that exact moment, exercising, volunteering, feeling feelings for humans, investing my energy in what sustains me rather than what just excites me, learning an instrument, etc.
I then spend the rest of the day failing to do any of these things.
This failure to succeed at 'life' leaves a lot of time for writing. I try to write 1,000 words a day. I often fail at this, too. But I always wake up thinking it would be a good idea to write 1,000 words and, because I believe this each morning, sometimes I don't fail.
So, yeah, I just wake up each day believing that it would be a good idea if I wrote some stuff. And then I try to make it the one thing I don't fail at that day. Does that count as having a writing habit?
Chloé Cooper Jones said...
August 21, 2009 at 11:19 AM