The Way You Write

[Randy]

Some writers have a "Writing Goal." Some say, "I set a goal to write five pages a day and 15 pages per chapter." What is your "Writing Goal?" Do you write long-hand and then edit or what. Share your "goal." How do you do what you do?

[Anne]

I try to write something every day. Even if it's a paragraph. (Sometimes, it's only a sentence). I find having strict goals can stifle me.
Then again, I get into moods where I try to write at least a page a day. That usually turns into more.
I suppose it depends.
Lately my depression has kicked in with a vengeance, and that makes almost everything pretty frackin' useless.

[Kirsty]

I always find that when I'm in my own little world, that's the best time to write, because my own little world becomes the basis of some random or bizarre storyline.

[[deleted user]]

Like Anne, I try to write every day. The amount depends on how far my inspiration stretches.

[Anne]

I also use pictures, and music to help inspire me.
This-

http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&am... Is one of my main characters right now.

[David]

I voraciously read newspapers and online news. Any breakthroughs about space or news about the nations in which I have set my novels are captured electronically or in print. I file the items and use them as sources of imagination about my next events in the stories. You can see the result in The Metalmark Contract (2011) http://t.co/I84t38U

[Charles]

A place dedicated to writing (Virginia Woolf, A Room Of One's Own). An inviolable time for writing. Stare at the blank page (screen) if that's all. No inspiration needed. (Trollope wrote 2000 words a day. Exactly. If he finished a book before the quota was up he started another one.) Only geezers and mothers of triplets may plead exhaustion or distraction. (Thomas Mann wrote during cocktail parties in LA.) Best taken with monasteries, hermitages, or long walking tours (Basho). Observation: most writers don't want to write -- they want to have written. (Prior authorization for this prescription is required.)

[D.D. Chant]

I write almost every day, how much I write depends on my mood! Some days all I can manage is 800 words and yet other days I can write 8000!

And no the above does not mean I'm prone to mood swings! Lol!

I can't write directly one to the computer, I think it has something to do with the vast white emptiness that, no matter how much you type, refuses to be filled!
Besides there is something incredibly satisfying about filling up a blank page and, eventually, a blank note book. :-D

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm flexible: if I can't seem to think of any way to progress the story then I leave it. Because I know that I'll just scratch what I forced myself to come up with the next time I'm feeling inspired! Lol!

[Charles]

Some people say the computer doesn't think at the right speed. Question: are you a dump it and revise it person, or do you try to get it the way you want it the first time? I think computers are best for the first sort.

[D.D. Chant]

Charles wrote: "Some people say the computer doesn't think at the right speed. Question: are you a dump it and revise it person, or do you try to get it the way you want it the first time? I think computers are be..."

A difficult one.

I usually try to get the idea on paper as quickly as possible knowing that I can polish the structure of the sentencing later. The idea might evaporate if I don't get it down though!!!

I usually do a 'soft' edit when I copy the story from my hand written notes on to the computer and then a 'proper' edit once it's all transfered.

What about you???

[Charles]

I write fast. Like Dd I want to get the idea down, and as many of the digressions as I can remember. But the main reason for going fast is that when I go back over it so many implications and subtexts suggest themselves that I never would have noticed if I had in effect written them out in the earlier drafts. These subtexts don't come from the conscious mind. You can't get them out on purpose. The mind can't understand the mind, as one says in zen. So in effect the faster I go the less attention I pay to what I'm really doing.

[Marianne]

Hi All, i write straight into the computer but i make lots of notes in various note books, which I keep in different places. I save everything, including all the bits I cut, unless they are deadly dull and I am fooling no one ;o) Depending on my mood I set myself word limits ..if I'm struggling to move forwards i go by Hemingway's rule of 500 words a day cause that seems doable, on other days I go by Pat Barker's recommendation of 3000 words a day. And then at other times, i set myself a time limit of so many hours and it doesn't matter how many words I write because on these days I'm concentrating on getting the words just "right". I read somewhere that Dickens couldn't write if he knew he had an appointment or a visitor later in the day. I'm also a bit like that _ I wish I wasn't. I suppose ultimately,its' about knowing 'thyself'! As for revising or rewriting, I think writing is all about rewriting, whether you do it on paper, in your head or on the computer. Oh, I also have two set places where I do my writing. My friend, on the other hand, can write anywhere and everywhere. I wish I was like that, but i am not. Thanks for the chat:)

[D.D. Chant]

Marianne wrote: "Hi All, i write straight into the computer but i make lots of notes in various note books, which I keep in different places. I save everything, including all the bits I cut, unless they are deadly ..."

Where is your set place for writing, Marianne???

I write anywhere, I take my note pad and pen where ever I go.
In the car.
On the train.
And several times on a boat!!!

It drives my Mum and Sister crazy!!!

Do you find that you don't read as much as you used to before you started writing.
I used to read between 3 and 5 books a week, but now when I think of reading I decide I want to do more work on my book instead!

[Charles]

Marianne wrote: "Hi All, i write straight into the computer but i make lots of notes in various note books, which I keep in different places."

I do that, and then I can't find the darn things. I'd make a terrible squirrel.

[Charles]

D.d. wrote: "Do you find that you don't read as much as you used to before you started writing."

No. More. When I started I didn't know enough about the history of my craft. I only read the little magazines and new books by certain people like Nabokov and Barthelme and Brautigan and Pynchon who might have new ideas. I was, frankly, a smug little twit. As it happened it helped that I was in the business, as a buyer and scholar. Now that I'm well intto geezerhood I read less, which is very distressing, but it has nothing to do with writing.

[Dale]

No schedules for me. Write what I write, when I write. Some days I can't write...it's useless to force the issue. Some days I can't stop writing...it's useless to force the issue. To me, if I'm forcing myself to write, I'm probably not enjoying it, which is no incentive to write. I write because I enjoy it. Even that painful first draft process is fun when I'm doing it at my own pace, in my own time. Do I write books in record time? Hell no. Especially when working full time, kids in the house, dinners to cook, supplies to buy, books to read, reviews to write, houses to clean, etc etc etc.

I read more now than before I started writing. At first i didn't...I wanted to spend the most time on my writing. that was a big mistake. Once you stop reading, you lose touch with what's in the market, what people are reading, what publishers are looking for.

Believe it or not, I had an agent tell me that he could tell I didn't read a lot in the genre I was pitching at the time. I was mortified...because he was right. I had stopped reading several years before...I don't mean completely stopped, but one or 2 books a year didn't count. I was, quite frankly, out of touch with that genre.

Joining Goodreads was the best thing i could have done for my writing. I read more than ever...yet still find the time to write.

[Marianne]

Hi D.d - I have one "writing" computer set up in a floored attic area-cum-den above the garage. I can have the internet there but I chose not, so it's just where I write. It's separate from the house and great for peace and quiet (as long as I can keep my son and his friends out of it ;). I also like listening to music when I write so I have music set up. The other computer is in the house, I write here too but use this one more for admin stuff (this is where I am now!). I take my notepad/s with me everywhere though and take notes about things, but only when I am by myself. As for reading, yep, I agree, I read less, or rather I read differently in that I read in phases ie: i'll read a whole heap of books together, then nothing for a few months, which usually corresponds to whether I am in a serious writing phase or not.

So, have I understood, you take notes/write while you are with other people? Wow! I admire that! Can you see a time when you will stop writing out long hand in your note book and go straight to the computer?

[Charles]

Dale wrote: "I read more than ever...yet still find the time to write. "
Isn't it interesting how flexible time is. I look on my bookshelves and think how on earth did I manage to read all that? In school I thought nothing of five novels a week and that was with coursework and papers and beer. I read Ulysses on the bus to work, and in the basement on lunch hours under one hanging lightbulb. I do think the writing and related art and bookmaking have displaced reading. Eventually displaced.

[Marianne]

Hi Charles, hope the notebooks turn up eventually ;o)
Worse than losing track of a notebook, which I have done!, is not being able to read what I have written at a later day. Grrr!! It is hugely annoying and seriously embarrassing! I don't know how many wonderful metaphors and fantastic ideas have been lost that way! ;o)

[Charles]

Marianne wrote: "Hi D.d - I have one "writing" computer set up in a floored attic area-cum-den above the garage. I can have the internet there but I chose not, so it's just where I write. It's separate from the h..."

Oooh, studio envy. Famously, Simenon sequestered himself when he felt a book coming on, had his meals slipped under the door so to speak, and came out only before the book's final revision. For that you need a cook and a personal assistant, too.

[Jason]

Hi Everyone,

I try to write everyday and I've grown to prefer using my laptop when writing prose. On the rare occasion that I sit down to write a poem that is something I need to do with pen and paper.

As for a goal when I sit down to write. On occasion I will tell myself that I have to make sure to get a chapter done but I mostly use a trick that I picked up from either an old interview that Hemingway had done or it may have been in a biography on him. Basically I don't actually write down every idea that is in my head that day. I stop just before I've gotten it all out. This way I already have my starting point for when I sit down to write the following day.

[Marianne]

Hi Charles, ha ha! A studio. I wish ;o) You have to see this floored attic, especially after my son and his chums have been in it. As for a cook and a personal assistant – oh, how lovely to not have to bother with the humdrum of every day life! Hope springs eternal! That said my long and suffering husband does occasionally bring me a cup of coffee ;o)
I love Simenon's books and did not know that about his writing habit. Wouldn't it be nice to not have to do anything but write?! Anyone else struggle with dividing their time between their "writing" and other commitments?

[D.D. Chant]

Marianne wrote: "Hi D.d - I have one "writing" computer set up in a floored attic area-cum-den above the garage. I can have the internet there but I chose not, so it's just where I write. It's separate from the h..."

Your writing pad sounds great!

And yes I do write when I'm with people, everyone says it's very antisocial of me!

The only time when I've suddenly thought 'This might no be the best of ideas' is when I was on the boat. My note pad contained 20.000 words that I hadn't transfered over on to the computer and I suddenly thought: 'If we sink I'll lose my book!!!'

My sister laughed like crazy when I told her, she said that most people worried about drowning not how to keep their notes dry!

[Charles]

Marianne wrote: "Hi Charles, ha ha! A studio. I wish ;o) You have to see this floored attic, especially after my son and his chums have been in it. As for a cook and a personal assistant – oh, how lovely to not hav..."

When I was getting my MFA I had this 800 aquare foot house with an attic but no kids and I loved it. I went trout fishing with one of my professors twice a week and ate trout for breakfast and had nothing to do but write and talk about writing in smoky dark bars just like the real writers and artists I idolized. This not counting the cutting edge theatre, the classic movies this small-town boy had never seen. But I was too stupid to read Dostoevsky. I didn't see the point. I read Robbe-Grillet. Nobody else did. I've never gotten over that attic.

[John]

My goal is to hit my deadline (when I have one). Right now it's April 10th - a popular horror writer read a couple of my stories and asked me to write one for an anthology he's going to have work in along with a few other writers. I've known since January and spent the last 2 months thinking about the story - 5,000 word max - this weekend I'll try to finish the first draft. I work best under pressure. When my publisher starts nagging me it has the same effect.

As for how - on a lap at the coffee table with the tv on the Weather Channel or off and my girlfriend sleeping or in another room. Though she's pretty quiet, I have to be alone.

[Jason]

Hi John,

Looks like your the firs in the discussion to mention what you need in regards to background noise and privacy. I think it's interesting that none of thought to mention that.

For me I need to have the Ipod on to something that I think fits the tone of what of what I'm writing and I'm actually okay if one or two people are in the room when I'm working; just so long as they don't try read over my shoulder while I'm working : )

[John]

Hey Jason ...

I'm major ADD and have to have things as close to right as possible. My girlfriend is very quiet and wouldn't try to read what I'm typing. Actually she's legally blind (30% sight) and can't read unless the print is enlarged a little. Fortunately she sleeps late and I'm alone again - right now I'm grabbing my Kindle and going out to the porch with a cup of coffee. I'll read a couple chapters and then come in and get some writing done.

[Sheila]

I don't have time to stick to a writing goal as my reading goals have promised review deadlines. But writing's my chocolate--a treat when the rest is done.

[[deleted user]]

Anne wrote: "I also use pictures, and music to help inspire me.
This-

http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&am......."


So do I and sometimes I use my favorite movie clip scenes from Marvel Movies. INSPIRATION ONLY!