Holidays are great--I spent this last one in FL with sand between my toes and plenty of sunshine. I hate to complain about such a great 4-day weekend (so don't, you might be thinking) except that the writing materials I took with me mainly served as props to assuage my guilt rather than tools to keep me moving forward on my current novel.
Every good writer, and certainly the great ones, swear they have to write every day once they begin a new work, claiming that even one day off breaks their "flow" and makes staying on track impossible. I know what they mean: I got little done for the four days I was gone and now struggle to get back to work. How many times can I check my email to avoid putting forth some real effort?
It's amazing how quickly you lose the discipline writing takes, the sitting down at the same time every night and working for a particular amount of time or producing X number of pages before you quit, depending on your novel's stage of development.
Pat Conroy points out that writers live mundane lives in which they get up at the same time, write all day, and then stop at the same time. Hemingway wrote for 6 hours a day when he was working on a novel (naked according to one source, so that he couldn't wander off). Annie Dillard likes a windowless room where the temptation of the outside world cannot seep through curtains or mini-blinds, no sunshine to distract. (Interestingly, Conroy has to have a nice view with music in the background.) Writers such as these have the discipline to sublimate personal needs to the need of the novel for order, structure, mundanity.
I hope this blog counts as writing tonight--if so, maybe I'm getting back on track--but tomorrow, it's sitting down at the old prescribed time and putting in hours measured by words produced and no less.
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