The Writer's Discipline

No one has ever accused me of being disciplined. Ask any of my teachers, grades k through well, ever. I tend to wait until the last minute to get things done, which in this day and age, seems to be gaining favor and even has a new moniker: Just in time (whatever).

I think about the Maslow chart from psych 101 where different people needed different levels of stress to be motivated. Mine was way on the right/stress side. The more stressed I was the better I performed.

The problem is that as a writer, I also know that the more time I have for a piece of work, the better it is. Writing, like wine and cheese, gets better with age. First and foremost, it gives Lisa and I more time to go back and forth on it. And there is no doubt in my mind that the more she looks as something the better it gets. Take the first chapter of my book. She just looked at it again for the first time in probably about a year, and there are new edits! yes! and brilliant ones at that. My friend Kerry introduced me to the old writer's axiom "If I had more time, I would have written less." It's true, the longer I have to work on a piece, the tighter and crisper it becomes. So then my instinct to procrastinate is in direct conflict with my goal to succeed as a writer. So the course is clear: I must develop a better writing habit.

I have read many writers work on writing. They all have a method they are happy to pass on and might work for you. But none work for me. I read one writer who sits at his computer every day for 4 hours. He types gibberish if need be until something intelligent comes out of his brain on to the screen. Others just write, about anything, forcing themselves to put words together every day no matter what. None of that is going to work for me. My brain and my fingers rebel.

Lisa, like a good manager, pushes me and that helps. "Where's the next chapter?" the email will say. "Can you send me back the copy with the edits in?" But sometimes, like last night, I just want to veg: watch 2 hours of on demand TV, play computer solitaire, and go to bed. The problem is that isn't going to get the book finished.

The good news is this, I woke up feeling so guilty about my lack of productivity yesterday, I banged out a new chapter this morning. So therein might be the solution to my problem. Guilt. Lisa is Catholic, I'm Jewish. We should have a lock on this. Once the book is published, the next book will be, The Secret to A Good Writing Habit: Guilt. Oye.