Sometimes I show up for track practice in jeans without hot sauce stains and cashmere sweater. Polished red Doc Marten's. Hair combed. This, as opposed to running shoes, shorts, a hoodie, and hair gone astray from a workout. It's getting pretty gray. I'm thinking the tousled look makes me years younger. It doesn't but that's what I tell myself.
Here's what my runners say: "Wow. You look like an author."
My runners are only slightly aware of the life I lead when not clicking the stopwatch. What I want to tell them is that my version of looking like an author is padding around the house until midday in slippers and sweatpants. It's six cups of coffee by ten, when I switch over to water. It's promising myself I'll knock off every day by noon so I am assured of a long healthy trail run or weight session. This invariably gets pushed back to one because the words won't let me go, whereupon I'm rushing to get a smidgeon of fitness before practice.
I sometimes wonder what it must be like to be Robert Caro, wearing a suit and tie to a Manhattan office for each writing day in a most Ronald Reagan-like way. I also wish I could turn out pages as quickly as the late William F. Buckley, who would write a book in eight days while holed up in the South of France. But I am who I am, writing in the clothes that make me comfortable, at a pace that makes me pick the words I want with ease and calm.
That's one of my personal rules for writing a book. I spent years copying the habits of other writers, thinking they were the one true way to put words on the page. So, since the great amount of email I receive comes from people who want to write a book of their own (or have me ghost for them), here are a couple other things I've picked up along the way.
Office hours: I write from 8-ish to noon-ish. Sometimes five days a week and sometimes six or seven. Like training to become a great distance runner, one of the best ways to become a better writer is consistency.
Create Your Own Space: My office is a small room in the corner of my garage. It's filled with the things I love, as well as heat, AC, carpeting, bookshelves, and a stereo. It wraps its arms around me when I step inside and sit down at my desk. But for the next five or six hours of writing, all I see are the words in front of me.
No excuses: Even if you don't have an office, find a way. I think I learned this trait when my boys were very young, pre-office, when the house was Nickelodeon on the TV and Jungle Book on the VCR, but I can write anywhere. I wrote two books while using the crew compound for Survivor as my writing area. I write in planes, airports (sitting on the floor, leaning against a column for a plug-in), doctor's offices, and pretty much anywhere I can open a laptop. Any place but a Springsteen concert. That's where I draw the line.
Write, then edit: If you want to make the writing process overly slow and methodical, edit as you go. Much better to write a whole bunch of papers, realizing they will be a mess, then go back after a week or so to clean them up. Pages are progress and progress is motivating.
Sleep: I used to think it would be more productive to get up a couple hours early to squeeze in more writing time. But I would be groggy and half-awake, writing words that I would end up deleting because they SUCKED. A couple extra hours sleep makes the writing day flow.
Easy on the commas: This is a personal thing but commas are a breath. Sometimes a breath slows the pace. I am merciless in cutting out commas — especially when Microsoft Word tries to use that squiggly blue underline to tell me my grammar is off. I decide when my grammar is off.
Be prepared to be that guy who doesn't pay attention: Once a story gets inside your head it doesn't want to let go. This means 3 a.m. wake-ups, conversations you can't follow, remembering a date from 1940 but not remembering the important event my wife told me about last night. Then someone you love will say those truthful words: "You never pay attention" and you just have to admit they're right because you're barely paying attention as they state that simple fact. Just be ready to beg forgiveness.
Read aloud and let it go: I print my pages for clean-up (see #4), read them out loud as I edit, make the corrections, then move on. Sometimes this might mean ten versions of a particular edit but when it's done it's done. I will read the final version of the manuscript when the publisher sends it to me for First Pass, then never again. I've got a copy of each book I've written in my office but I never go back and reread. What's the point? A new story owns me.
Silence the critical parent: There's going to be someone looking over your shoulder, telling you the work is shit, or that you have no business attempting to write a book. That someone is figurative, but let's just call them a critical parent. They only live inside your head. They're not real. It's tough but you have to tell these invisible people to shut the fuck up. Find your voice. Be the ball, Danny.
There's more. But let's stop. Good luck with your writing. As long as you're putting words on the page, you look like an author. Because you are,