The Week After

Looking to Write a Twelve

The week after a new book comes out is always a bit strange.  Especially for a writer like me, who doesn’t belong to a writer/critique group, and who uses only a very limited circle of “beta readers,” it’s a bit like introducing your new beau to your family.  Will what you love come across to others?

This can get in the way of actually writing.  I’ve known some writers who freeze up even after they’ve sent out a piece to a potential market.  I don’t have that problem, mostly because I learned all too long ago that market response is glacially slow, and even response on a project that was solicited (such as a novel under contract or a story for an anthology) can take a while.

So, last week, even though I wanted to get back to writing, the need to do promotional stuff kept reminding me that Library of the Sapphire Wind was really “out there.”  This week I hope to get back to writing, and I’ll do it by going back to a trick I developed way, way back in the days when I had to fit my writing time in to teaching college fulltime (five courses, often five preps, which is a heck of a lot of work).

In those days, I was corresponding on a regular basis with Roger Zelazny.  One day, he mentioned in passing that he tried to sit down three or four times a day and write three or four sentences.

I’ll admit, my first response was indignation.  I barely had one time in a day when I could write: three to four times sounded positively decadent.

But a little imp whispered in my ear: “Three times four is twelve.  Surely you can make time to write twelve sentences in a day.”

And that became my goal.  Twelve sentences, no cheating with a bit of “yes/no” dialogue.    The next day, no matter how much I’d written the day before—because sometimes twelve sentences was enough to get me going and I’d write a whole lot more—start over with twelve sentences as my goal.

To my astonishment, this worked.  During the five years that I taught college fulltime, I wrote several novels, numerous short stories, this in addition to writing a non-fiction book (a biography of Roger Zelazny for Twayne) and a quantity of non-fiction.  I even started selling, so I was writing up to professional levels.

These days I write fulltime, so having time to write shouldn’t be as much of an issue, but with the new demands on a writer (such as writing blogs like this one), my time to write is still impinged upon.  I still need to find a way to get my head into the space to write.

And when I do, I turn back to those twelve sentences…  Surely, no matter what, I can write twelve sentences.  Right?  I can revise the later or cut them.  But I’ll be writing.

This week, that’s my goal.  Anyone interested in knowing if I achieve it?