by Charlotte Hinger
My all-time favorite way to avoid the onerous task of writing a novel used to be through excessive research. I really knew how to milk that one. But I was saved by a scoldy part of my brain that monitors such nonsense. The rescue was quite simple. I forced myself to write a quota of pages every day. Five pages a day, five days a week.
After producing the five pages, I allowed myself to research until the cows came home. It worked beautifully. Especially before the internet became my prime source of information.
Now I've fallen prey again to my relentless curiosity. I have an instant attention span. I'm hooked immediately by obscure bits of useless information. When I watch TV, I frequently pause the program to look up tid-bits.
For instance, the other night I watched an old movie about Mary Queen of Scots. Did she and Queen Elizabeth ever meet, I wondered. The answer was yes, Safari informed me. Frequently in movies and even in one of my favorite operas, but in real life, never. Was her second husband, Lord Darnley really that bad? Yes. He was a real mess. Did she really marry Bothwell? Yes. But historians don't know why. Not for sure.
All of this carrying on interrupted my TV watching. It didn't matter. In fact, learning more about the background of this period in history increased my pleasure.
However, excessive interruptions are deadly to the creative process of writing a novel. For this reason, I've switched to longhand for the first draft. Through the years, I've learned more about the craft. I'm convinced it's very important to get the story down on paper as quickly as possible in accordance with the writer's natural bent. Some of us are simply slower than others. I am not a fast writer, but writing in long hand does away with accessing the internet or responding to email.
What's more, longhand stops me from "improving" a chapter into infinity. Through longhand, I have to get on with the story. Editing kicks in when I transfer the pages to the computer.
But much to my dismay, I've acquired a new way to procrastinate. I tend to become overinvolved with other activities. Committees, meetings, etc. Some of this was accidental when I was too stupid to realize the work involved, but on other occasions I take too much on through an over-developed sense of duty. That condition evolved from growing up in a very small town where everyone had to pitch in or a community wouldn't hang together.
I say yes when I shouldn't. But after giving the situation some thought, I've decided to go back to a set time. All I have to do is say, "I can't between 8-12 in the morning. That's when I work." That's a simple declaration that will force me to man up to writing difficult scenes and tackle plot problems.
Worse, I'm very clever at finding ways to escape when I'm not sure where a book is headed. Who wouldn't want to run away?
