What’s it like to write a novel?  Sometimes it’s like living with a 1000 piece jig saw puzzle in the middle of the dining room table.  You keep working at it, but every once in a while a piece or two falls onto the floor, or someone buries your puzzle with “”The New York Times”  or you have to move the puzzle because you’re having all your relatives over for dinner.  Carefully you try to slide your puzzle onto a flat surface to move it, but you start to panic as the whole thing starts to buckle.  Inevitably you have to make some repairs.  As you make progress, though, the picture becomes clearer, and you find yourself drawn to the puzzle more and more.   It’s easier to fit the pieces, because there are fewer to choose from.   You start closing the door to the dining room so that you can finish in a few marathon sessions.  Back at the beginning, you’d welcomed distractions.  Now all you want is to sit alone with your puzzle working the whole thing out.  You forget the time.  You forget to look at the picture on the box.  In fact, you lost the box a long time ago.  You are working from the picture in your mind.

I watched a bit of the Boston Marathon on Monday, and thought of the old analogy between novels and long distance running.   Like a marathoner, a novelist has to set a good pace–not too fast or you’ll burn out before the end.  Not too slow, or you’ll never finish.  Like a marathoner, a novelist has to train and build up to longer writing stints.   It takes time to hit your stride with a book–or any creative project.   A novel is like a marathon with its own obstacles and difficulties.  There may be times when you hit a wall, times when you struggle to run up a hill, even times when you feel like you can’t go on.   There are also times when writing comes easily.  You’ve got your rhythm, you feel the wind at your back, and the views are beautiful.

There are also huge differences between marathon running and novel writing.  The marathoner follows a set course.  The novelist has to make up a course.  The marathoner knows the distance she’ll run.  The novelist has to make that up too.  The marathoner confronts hills and valleys, good and bad weather.  The novelist writes hills and valleys and decides her own weather.  The marathoner runs her own race.  The novelist runs her own race and sets the pace for readers too.

As I write, I like to imagine my readers running with me.  Some run fast; some take it slow.  Some run in packs.  Some run alone.  As we round the bend, we see the finish line and pick up our heels.  I’m tired, but I’ve been looking forward to this moment for years.  I’ve planned this last stretch ever since I came out to this place and mapped the course.  I can’t wait to finish, and at the same time I want to keep running.  This is my favorite time–closing the distance.

Writing a novel is a bit like painting the Golden Gate Bridge.   I’m excited to get to the end so that I can go back and repaint the beginning.  With the end in sight, you have a better idea of the kind of work you need to do.  After all, no matter how much planning you do, there are some things you can only know from writing itself.  You can write notes and outlines, you can think and think, but it’s the work itself that will teach you how to make your final decisions about plot and characters, which scenes to develop, and which to cut.

Some writers say that their characters escape them and take destiny into their own hands.  I wouldn’t go so that far as that, but I’d say that characters can teach you.  Developing a character, and a story, you’ll find that your book will tolerate certain outcomes and not others.   If you do your job as a writer, your material will begin to assert itself, and begin to guide you.  Potters talk about clay taking form in their hands.  Sculptors talk about stone or wood telling them what it wants to become.  Fiction writing is a little different, because you are often hunting for your clay at the river bank, inventing the stone and the tree, but once you’ve gathered materials in your imagination, you’ll find that those materials have their own properties, and your work goes best when you respect the color of the clay, the grain of the wood, the veins in the stone.

This is why I enjoy the middle and end time of novel writing so much.   I’ve got my materials, I’ve shaped my characters, and my imagination can stop roaming far afield, settle down, and work with these.

At the end of the day, I can’t help hoping for something to show for my work.  At least a couple of pages!

I feel great when I finish a chapter, or write a long scene.  But there are days when I do more thinking than writing, and I have little to show for my effort.  It’s taken me time to realize that thinking is a huge and unsung part of writing.  Thinking through a story, working out a problem in a novel.  This takes time away from the page.

Sometimes as you write, you’ll come up with a solution to a problem, or find the direction you are looking for.  I’ve found, however, that it’s dangerous to expect yourself to figure out everything on the fly.  It’s stressful to figure out a plot while writing.  A bit like parachuting out of an airplane and trying to plan a party on the way down.

If you’re writing a long and complicated book, it’s particularly dangerous to try to think and write all at once.  You might find yourself freezing up altogether.  The imagination can go on strike, you know!

To avoid this problem, I stop writing periodically to spend time thinking and planning.   I write pages of notes.  I draw up charts with lots of arrows.  I try to think things through.  I prepare for a chapter as I might prepare for a speech–allowing for improvisation, but putting together scads of notes.    After a day or two, I start getting impatient.  My imagination gets ready to run again.

How much planning do you do?

One great thing about writing is that age and experience help.  It’s not like dancing or tennis where you wear out quickly.

Here are some things I’ve learned with experience:

1. Don’t talk about your work.  It’s harder to write when you talk about it all the time.

2. Don’t show your work until you’re ready–really ready.  When you finish a draft take another week to reread and revise.  I guarantee that the extra time and attention will pay off.

3. Build in breaks to your day.  Few can concentrate for hour after hour and many burn out trying.   Try a five minute break every hour, and give yourself a real lunch break too!

4. Exercise helps.  Walking, running, swimming, just plain stretching.  You’ll think better.

5. Plan ahead.  I know I sound unromantic, but writing notes or outlines and thinking about how long a project will take will help keep you sane.  Setting small short term goals makes a long project much less overwhelming.

6.  Read.  Some people swear off reading while they write a book, but I think that’s like exiling yourself.   If you find reading distracting, try a different genre.  Read poetry when writing fiction.  Try reading a play.

7. Daydream.  Staring out the window is actually not a waste of time.   Writing involves more than setting words own on the page.   In fact, thinking and imagining come first.  It’s so easy to forget that!

8. Try not to rush.  Don’t keep churning out pages just to get to the end.  Hold yourself to a certain standard so that you’re actually happy with the work you’ve done so far.  Careful work will make you confident.

9.  Enjoy the process.  Why do something you don’t enjoy?  This is your life; this is the only time you have.  Choose work you love.

10. Forgive yourself.  Nothing worthwhile is easy.  It’s hard to tell a story.  It takes a lifetime to learn.

Writers develop all kinds of excuses for not writing.   Fear.  Loneliness.  Exhaustion.  Self Criticism.  I’ve got a new one for you.  Sometimes it’s hard to start writing because you know you’re going to be interrupted.  In other words, it’s hard to start because it’s hard to stop.

I find I’m more susceptible to this syndrome at the beginning of a project.  When I’m unsure where my story is going, my work seems more fragile, and my time more vulnerable.  As I make progress, I’m eager to return to my work each day, and more willing to take what I can get for time–even if it’s just forty five minutes in my parked car, or an hour on a Sunday morning when my nine year old could come upon me at any moment.

I do find, however, that fear of interruption is an unacknowledged cause of writer’s block.  If you’re having trouble starting your work, consider the quality of your work time.  Do you have a good three hours of quiet?  Or are you pressuring yourself to write a certain number of words in between errands and activities.  Do you have time when you’re alert?  Or are you exhausted when you sit down to write?

One of my sons hated to take baths when he was little.  He wasn’t afraid of the water.  On the contrary, he loved the water too much, and hated to get out.  He began to dread getting out of the tub, and then he started avoiding baths altogether.  Creative work can become like that warm bath.   It helps to schedule enough time to enjoy it.  And it definitely helps to acknowledge that you can’t always jump in and out of your writing quickly–that you need time to soak, to think, to float!  Don’t rush the transition from the outside world into your inner life and back.  Try to think of ways to ease yourself in and out.

Easing into my work, I read the newspaper, and listen to music, and reread what I wrote the day before.

Easing out, I read a chapter from a good book, stare out the window, take a short walk, listen to music, outline the scene I’ll write next.

What about you?

Some writers swear that inspiration and instinct are their only guides.  I have a friend who says, “I have no plan.  I just keep working toward whatever feels alive.”  Others swear by old fashioned hard work.  One writer I know told an audience at a bookstore.  “Butt on chair.  That’s the only way to write.  I don’t believe in inspiration.  You just keep slogging away.”

What to believe?   And which course to take?  Do you keep paper and pen by your bedside and hope that ideas will come to you in your sleep?  Or do you sit down every day at your desk and write by the clock, or by the page?

Each approach has its benefits and limitations.  You need that spark of inspiration to write.  You need to allow your imagination its freedom.  A sense of play, a sense of possibility, time for your unconscious to work–all these are necessary.   But if you spend all your time waiting for inspiration to strike, you’ll get nothing done.   On the other hand, you need to put in time at your desk–or on your couch or in your local coffee house–to write.  At some point, you do need to sit yourself down in your chair and ask yourself to produce some pages.  The problem with the butt in chair approach is that you might produce mediocre work just because you want to feel you’re getting something done.  You can force yourself to write a certain number of pages, or words, but if they aren’t good, you aren’t doing yourself any favors.

What to do?  Is it possible to reconcile these approaches?

Yes, I think you can.   Writing requires inspiration; it also requires patient hard work.   A novel–or a short story, or a poem, or a dissertation, for that matter–is the product of insight that takes just a moment and also steady hours and days of work.  Just as light is both a wave and a particle, writing is both quick and slow.  The trick is to recognize that writing requires more than one kind of work.  There will be times you need to dream or take long walks.  And there will be times you’ll need to sit in your chair and write patiently, describing, developing, unfolding your tale.   Writing requires thinking.  It’s no good sitting down and asking yourself to write 2000 words when you don’t know what you want to say.  Writing complex pieces requires planning.   It’s difficult to find your way without directions.  Your guide could be an outline, or notes, or just a mental image, but you need a guide.  Writing also requires improvisation, fluidity and flexibility.  Instinct is essential, a sense of shape, an ear for the rhythm of a scene, and yes, a sense of what’s alive.

The funny part about inspiration is that it doesn’t always come first.  We romanticize the initial creative spark, but consider that breakthroughs often come in the middle of a project, not the beginning.  Why?  Because the imagination abhors a vacuum.  It requires material–whether that’s data, or dreams, or memory, or reading, or bits of writing you’ve done on the fly.  I’ve found that I’m most free when I’m best prepared.  As Louis Pasteur said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.”

1. Cooking.  How can I cook a big dinner after slaving all day over an imaginary stove?

2. Returning videos.  But I know my local video rental store needs the cash from late fees.

3. Plants.  A couple of books ago I killed a large cactus.  Turns out that not watering for two years will cause death.

4. Clothes shopping.  This is where writing can save money.

5.  Blogging.  Writing every day means less time to write about writing.

6.  Worrying.  Strangely no free time can contribute to great peace of mind.

How about you?  What do you let go when you’re in the throes of a big project?

There are writers who set themselves goals: 1000 words a day, or, three hours every morning. Then there are writers who work only when the spirit moves them, waiting for inspiration and then working nonstop. I’m somewhere in between. I try to write consistently, but I don’t have a rock solid routine. I do hope for inspiration, but I have to work while I’m waiting–and pick up kids, and buy groceries.

The tricky thing about writing is that it’s not even or consistent work. Sometimes writing goes quickly, and sometimes it goes verrrry slowly. Sometimes it involves steady page by page progress, and sometimes work means throwing out three chapters or taking a walk. For this reason, it’s difficult to map out a writing project in neat equal installments.

What I’ve found is that each story has its own slope. When you start out, you’re writing your way uphill, figuring out what to do, learning–indeed, inventing–the terrain.

The middle of a story feels like cresting the hill. At this point, you might want to rush to the end, but don’t do that. Stop here, unpack your picnic, sit with your reader and admire the view.

Ending means writing your way down again. Writing downhill is much faster than working your way up, but you need to pace yourself so you don’t run out of energy, and step carefully so don’t fall, or start avalanches, or get lost in the woods.

Every writing project has its own slope–steep, or gentle, or slippery.  A novel might have a gentle slope and a short story might have a rocky one, hard going at first. Strange and wonderful to consider these narrative topographies. Strangest of all to think that within a larger project like a novel, each chapter has its own slope, its own unique challenges and surprises–a sudden waterfall! A tangle of wild blackberries.

This week I read at the Fall for the Book Festival at George Mason University.  A young alumna of the MFA program drove me around and asked me if I had any words of wisdom for her as an aspiring writer.

I came up with a a lot of advice while talking to her, and then thought of more while flying home.  Here are my top 10 tips.

1. Keep your day job.  You’ll earn a living, and the real world is great material.

2. Work on more than one project.  If your novel doesn’t pan out, it’s wonderful to have something else in the oven.

3. If you want to write (and get something done) while taking care of kids at home, you’ll need childcare.  Nobody says this, but it’s true.

4. Try not to talk about your ideas.  Let your subconscious work in peace.

5. Don’t force yourself to write a certain number of words a day.  It’s so much better to write a great paragraph than a messy five pages.  Go for quality, not quantity, and you’ll save time in the long run.

6. Read your work aloud.

7. Revise as you go, and then revise when you’re done, and then put your work aside and revise again.

8. Don’t let other people rush you.

9.  Enjoy yourself.   You don’t have to be miserable to make art.   Misery and self-loathing are optional!

10. Read, read, read.   When you’re tired out, let other writers carry you.