Writing on schedule
I’m sitting in The Rude Shipyard cafe with poet, Suzannah Evans, at the moment. It’s our usual Monday rendezvous in which we commit to our writing in one of Sheffield’s cafes. Although we spend a fair amount of time talking and lavish money on lunch and pots of tea, I cherish this time as it’s the one day of the week when I can guarantee that I will at least write something.
This week I’m increasing my commitment to writing however, inspired by Dorothea Brande’s classic tome, Becoming a Writer. Lots of writers on writing encourage a writing habit (Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg are amongst my favourites) but it seems they were probably inspired by Dorothea who in 1934 was offering stern advice to those who aspire to the writers’ life.
In Chapter Five she suggests that the best way to ‘harness the unconscious’ and begin writing is to set the alarm thirty minutes earlier in order to write. Like Cameron she believes that this ‘training’ is essential to the serious writer or artist. Although, as a childless freelancer, I was a great fan of Cameron’s ‘morning pages’, in those days, setting the alarm for nine rather than nine thirty wasn’t such a hardship. Now, when I’m brutally woken at seven by a small child shouting at me from the bedside (and with various health challenges to contend with), setting the alarm for six thirty seems impossible. I don’t think Dorothea would have much sympathy for me but I ignored her advice on this and skipped to Chapter Six: Writing on Schedule, which is an altogether more palatable idea.
Her challenge in Chapter Six is to look at your plan for the day first thing in the morning and work out where you can allocate fifteen minutes to your writing. And then, and this is important, COMMIT TO IT.
“Your agreement is a debt of honour, and must be scrupulously discharged; you have given yourself your word and there is no retracting it. If you must climb out over the heads of your friends at that hour, then be ruthless; another time you will find you have taken some pains not to be caught in a dilemma of the sort.”
Ruthless she clearly is, but there’s something about her school ma’am tone that I find helpful. If I don’t do my writing I expect her to pop out over my shoulder and tell me that I’ve let myself and her and the whole school down and I’m not sure I can live with that sort of disapprobation. And, so far, her advice is working. Generally I consider that I’m too tired to start writing at 9pm when the children are asleep but last night it was the only available slot and I managed to write a letter to a magazine in twenty-five minutes. I’m hoping that going over time is allowed. And, on Saturday, I wrote a poem in my pyjamas while I waited for the takeaway to be delivered. It’s a habit that my writing group has taken on this week and I’m looking forward to seeing how they’ve got on. And it’s a habit that I’m intending to continue. Which is just as well as, according to Dorothea, if I fail at this exercise I should give up writing now because,
“your resistance is actually greater than your desire to write, and you may as well find some other outlet for your energy early as later.”
Harsh, but maybe fair. Take up the Dorothea challenge yourself and see what you think.