The art of slow writing - Louise DeSalvo 2014

Finding our own rhythm
Getting ready to write

Interviewers always ask writers “When do you write? What’s your writing schedule?” I love learning how writers organize their lives because I hope I can apply something I’ve learned to my own writer’s life.

J. D. Salinger, author of The Catcher in the Rye (1951), started work each morning at 6 a.m., but not later than 7 a.m., and he wrote, without interruption, throughout the day, and sometimes well into the night. Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale (1986), writes from ten in the morning until four in the afternoon. Peter Carey, author of Oscar and Lucinda (1988), writes “[m]ostly in the mornings”; “making stuff up for three hours, that’s enough,” although he sometimes returns to the work late in the day to revise it. Jonathan Franzen, author of The Corrections (2001), has said that he can write eight to ten hours a day.

Often, I compare my own writing regimen with that of other writers—I write for about two hours a day, fewer when I’m teaching—and sometimes chastise myself for not writing longer. I imagine setting my alarm so I can be at my desk early like Salinger, and working throughout the day and into the night. But I soon realize Salinger’s rhythms aren’t mine; his life wasn’t like mine.

One of my jobs as a writer is to learn what my rhythms are. That’s not easy because when it’s best for me to write changes throughout the year, when I’m teaching, from one year to the next, from one project to the next, sometimes even from one day to the next. For years, I worked mornings. Then when I wrote my memoir Vertigo (1996), I discovered I worked best on this particular book during the afternoons. (I later read memory functions best then, so that might be why.)

Edward M. Hallowell’s CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap! (2006) suggests strategies we can employ so we can understand our work rhythms, reclaim the time we need to write, and discover when we work best.

• Limit your commitments so you have time to do what you want to do.

• Reserve time to do what matters rather than frittering time away on what isn’t important.

• Use the time of day when you’re most alert on what matters most to you.

• Train yourself to stay on task—write down what you’re working on and post it close to you.

• Sculpt your day to do what matters most to you.

• Keep adjusting the way you spend your time until you find what works for you.

• Find your own rhythm. Don’t assume someone else’s will work for you.

• And understand that sculpting your day will be an ongoing task.

Early in my writing life I read Virginia Valian’s essay “Learning to Work,” which taught me how to work at writing. Set a timer, Valian said, and work however long you decide to write. Begin with only five minutes and move on from there. Learning how to sit at our desks without interruption is a necessary skill we can learn. It’s the first—and one of the most difficult—assignments I give my writing students. I like to use a meditation timer; it keeps me focused and helps me regard my writing time as a meditative task.

These days, when I’m not teaching, I’m at my desk, and writing, by 10 a.m. I can’t settle down to write unless I meditate, exercise, write in my journal, shower, and dress in something I wouldn’t mind being seen in. I sometimes chide myself for not getting to the desk earlier. But I know that’s when I work best now. As Hallowell suggests, I must sculpt my day to do what matters most to me right now—write that book about my parents’ lives during World War II—during the morning, my most productive time, when I’ve found I work best on this book. And each day, I’ll assess what worked and what didn’t, and make changes when necessary. I also ask my students to discover, and continually reassess, what time of day works best for them.

All of us can write. Few of us know how to work at writing. And even fewer of us know how to sculpt our lives so we can write. These are learned skills, acquired through time and practice. And, Hallowell says, it seems more difficult to practice these skills now, because learning how to think deeply about our writing lives is different from just being busy. Reflection takes time, quiet, and patience.

Michael Chabon, author of Wonder Boys (1995), has described how he and his wife, the novelist Ayelet Waldman (who was a lawyer before she became a novelist), plan their writing around the demands of raising four children. When an interviewer asked, “How do you make space to craft your work?” Chabon responded that, during the school year, when their children are at school, Waldman works “almost entirely during that period,” getting “her word count in every day,” a routine that “works well for her.”

Chabon’s “natural rhythm,” though, “is to work at night, stay up late and to sleep late.” But “that schedule does not work at all well in a family with small children” because Chabon likes to be with them early in the morning. He envies Waldman because she works so well during the day. He’s been struggling with his schedule of “staying up late, and getting up early” for years. To work with, rather than against, his natural writing rhythm, he has to “go away [to write],” to a writing colony, a friend’s cabin, or a hotel. Then he can write late into the night, sleep late, get sufficient rest, and “get a lot done.” In a few days, he can compose what would ordinarily take him a month to write at home.

Chabon and Waldman have accepted the reality of their lives with children, and sculpt their days so they can parent their children but also write. Waldman’s solution is different from Chabon’s because their writing rhythms are different.

Colum McCann, author of TransAtlantic (2013), has said that although he would work every waking hour if he could, he’s chosen to limit his writing time: “there is also a life to lead—travel, family, the odd jaunt down to the pub.” Writing is an essential part of McCann’s life. Still, “I don’t live my life as a writer,” he says. “It’s what I do, but not necessarily what I am.” McCann has reflected upon what matters most to him, and he organizes his life so that writing, though it is an important part of his life, doesn’t dominate it.