A Writer's Time: Making the Time to Write Authors' Message Words and Myth (excerpt) Publishing Tips (excerpt)

:::.............................. AUTHOR'S MESSAGE The advice in this book draws from the problems that writers have presented in individual consultations, private and university classes, and development meetings--as well as from my own experience as writer, editor, publisher, and independent producer. The system described in A Writer's Time has helped thousands of writers, from beginners to hardened professionals, to overcome problems at one stage or another of their professional careers. The system isn't based on preconceived or philosophical notions about what writing ought to be though it reflects my lifelong interest in the way the imagination works through myth and story. A Writer's Time has little to do with romantic concepts of the suffering writer. Neither is it based on my belief in myself as a writer. It's hard to think of yourself that way, especially if you're spelling "writer" with a capital W. I find it much less intimidating to think of myself simply as a person who, among other activities, writes in order to speak his mind. I write nearly every day, but I know better than anyone that most of the time I'm not writing. I'm doing something else: meeting with clients, supervising editors, lecturing, editing screenplays, going to development meetings and sales lunches, connecting our writers with agents, producing for film, television, or video, talking on the phone, holding staff meetings--and taking many vacations. A Writer's Time explains how you can manage to write and publish in the same lifetime that demands your involvement in a multitude of other activities. A writer, after all, is only a person who loves writing, and believes in it strongly enough to want to do it well. A person who writes about something that's not of interest is not, by my definition, a writer (there are students, of course, but their goal should be to finish being students at the earliest opportunity, so they can begin writing only about what they love). Having to write about things other people tell you to write about invariably leads to writer's block. If you concentrate on your own interests, you've licked most of the problem. Norman Cousins, author of Anatomy of an Illness and The Healing Heart, divides the human race into "positive" and "negative" people: The positive people work miracles, accounting for the evolution of human performance. I have another dividing principle, productive and nonproductive people: those who can do things and those who only talk about things (especially talk about why they can't do things). As far back as I can remember, I was determined to contribute something, to be productive, and I've always questioned those who--though they may know much--go through life without making a mental contribution to the species: "if I live, I ought to speak my mind." Productive people have a love affair with time, with all of love's ups and downs. They get more from time than others, seem to know how to use time much better than nonproductive people--so much so that they can waste immense quantities of time and still be enormously creative and productive. One of my favorite examples is John Peabody Harrington, the great anthropologist of the American Southwest. At the time of his death, Harrington's field notes filled a basement of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and several rented warehouses in the Washington suburbs were needed for the overflow. Yet Carobeth Laird, Harrington's biographer, called him one of the greatest wasters of time she'd ever known-and said he felt the same way about himself. In the section of this book dealing with time, we see how discrepancies can occur, and how you can get onto the right track, becoming productive in your use of time to achieve your writing and publishing goals. I firmly believe that anyone can be productive once the decision is made to master time and the necessary skills. This book shows you how to do both. Aristotle said that the most characteristically human activity is planning your life, yet it's amazing how few people take life planning seriously. Those who do are the productive people, those who don't disappear under the surface without leaving a bubble behind to brighten the world. So strongly did the Greeks believe in planning that they literally planned their lives, dividing them into seven-year periods; and deciding what they wanted to accomplish during each of those periods. It's not time that's scarce: It's planning. The Italians say, "There's more time than life," suggesting that you'll have plenty of time to do all you want to do if you take the time to plan. During the next year or the next few years, plan to lay the foundation for your writing career. Immerse yourself in the planning process and build the foundation, and take your satisfaction from the doing of it, not from the having done it. The poet, as e. e. cummings reminds us, cares not for things made but only for the making. Your career, you'll discover, will take the shape of your foundation. To those who understand the relationship between craftsmanship and architecture, this will not be surprising. The plan begins with a dream, a dream so strong that it must become true. Then you put the dream in order, in your head, allowing it to develop as any living being develops before its birth; next the dream is sketched on paper, in the step known as "first draft." Vacation comes next, which removes you from the newborn object, building perspective toward it (another type of gestation). Finally you return to the process of revision, knowing what to take out, what to leave in. You've made your dream come true by risking the realization of the sketch: writing the book, building the wall. A life should be as carefully planned as a work of art so that it takes on the characteristic shape of your mind (the true meaning of "lifestyle"). You set goals for yourself by asking what you envision yourself doing in seven years. What image of yourself have you been secretly entertaining? Bring the image out of the closet; entertain it consciously (in the privacy of your own workroom). Examine it carefully. Ask yourself if it's realistic. Goals that are too high are counterproductive, just as goals that are too low are unworthy of your efforts. Once you've focused on the image in your mind, you begin asking yourself what steps are needed to make that image--your dream--a reality. Then you learn the steps in all the ways human beings learn anything: by imitation, by self- education, by schooling. This book helps you take the first steps. From there, you have to continue on your own. In Hollywood, it is said that four things guarantee success, in this order: Perseverance (or determination, or stamina) Connections "Being fun to work with" Talent Successful writers all agree that success consists of writing, submitting your work for publication, and continuing to write and submit until you're accepted. Meanwhile, your primary attention is on the work, not on the submitting process, and certainly not on the rejection. But this book also shows you how to make the necessary split between the pragmatic "publishing" side of your mind and the artistic side from which true satisfaction derives. Once the split is made and the work begun in earnest, nothing but your own lack of faith and discipline can stop you from achieving success. Discipline is the key to all that follows; it’s the bedrock of productive writing. Talent is not a rare commodity. Discipline is. It requires determination more than self-confidence, the commitment of your will to the dream. A Writer's Time shows you how the mechanics of discipline work, but only you can will yourself to develop those mechanics in your own writing. I haven't mentioned the muse, the mythic word for "inspiration." She is the last person you want to depend on. Professional writers generally speak of her with a mixture of affection and tolerance: Discipline, not the Muse, results in productivity. If you write only when she beckons, your writing is not yours at all. If you write according to your own schedule, she'll shun you at first, but eventually she won't be able to stay away from your workshop. If you deny her urgings, she will adopt your discipline. Nothing attracts her more than a writer at work on a steady schedule. She'll come around. In other words, you become your own Muse, just as you make the clock of life your clock. I'll have much to say about the "product" throughout the book, some of which may surprise those who are convinced that the product itself brings satisfaction. The product is what readers value. But writers love the work: It's the producing that satisfies, the daily work itself, and the knowledge that you've found a craft which will profit infinitely from a consistent application of discipline and attention. A Writer's Time is based on the principles of vision, responsibility, productivity, and professionalism. Vision has to do with the power of the writer's dream, of the mental illumination that moves you toward self-expression. Write from the heart about things that matter to us all, and let nothing deter you from writing what only you can write. Responsibility means responding to your vision; if you have talent, inspiration, and something to say, you must write or all your life will be "bound in shallows and in miseries." Productivity comes from learning the mechanics of discipline and time management, of routine work on a program focused on accuracy and the refinement of technique. Professionalism is the harmonious combination of vision, responsibility, and productivity that occurs as experience leads to self-confidence. Happiness and security will come if you can embrace your work and dedicate your life to it. Good work habits will produce the works that change our lives and make them, if not happier or better, always more interesting. Most successful writers have adhered to these simple guidelines: Write with a purpose. "My purpose," wrote one person, "is to make what I write entertaining enough to compete with beer." What you're competing with is everything in the world--and nowadays that's much more than ever before. Write to make a difference. Write because you have something to say to us all. In dramatic writing, fiction, and nonfiction, this means knowing exactly what your work is about and being able to tell your prospective reader—and, before that, your prospective publisher--in ten words or less. The writing must demonstrate its premise in a convincing, persuasive way. Keep your audience in mind, their needs and their desires. Journalists do this by focusing on the 5 W's (Who, What, When, Where, Why) because they know what their readers look for. Convey emotion. Break out of your academic inhibitions and psychological barriers. William Faulkner hints at this when he says, "Writing is a craft consisting of pen, paper, and whiskey." The purpose of the whiskey is to rid the author of inhibitions. The first paragraph must, like the first page, hook the attention of the reader. One of your first readers is the editor who judges your manuscript. Brian Vachon said, "if that first and most important paragraph does not slap and sparkle like the sun in water, then we editors can't bother unduly with the rest." That may sound tough, but it's the exact same standard you apply when browsing in a bookstore. Writing must have an element of magic to it. When magic takes over, the writer himself loses track of time during the writing--and the reader will lose track of time during the reading. If you're happy at work and think of it as your own private briar patch--a place of escape from the world in which time is your time--the clock of life becomes your clock, and even the thorns in that briar patch are of your own choosing. Remember that publishers are interested in your public voice. "Publish" means to make public, and the public primarily understands language that is related to a conventional norm of structure and style--even if that norm is employed merely to depart from it. The writer who insists on speaking in a "private voice" finds it difficult to join the network of publishers and readers. Private writing is often good therapy. It makes you feel better by helping you deal with feelings, by helping you discover your own patterns of thought and behavior, or by helping you find out what you think in the act of writing it down. Private language is, in many cases, natural to private groups like families and useful to the individual. A diary is one example of useful private language, Mission Control's directions to the shuttle astronauts another. Since publishers want to hear your public voice, your letters to editors should be businesslike and direct. If a publisher becomes interested in your public voice, and establishes a professional relationship with you that will endure over a period of time, then he might be interested in your private language and life as well. But that comes later. This new edition reflects what I've learned in my new career as writer-producer for film, television, and video and literary manager dealing with every aspects of our writers’ careers. Producing films for video, television, and the theaters, as well as working with an increasing number of both experienced and "first-time" novelists, screenwriters, and nonfiction writers, has taught me new ways of crisis management, and of "stealing time" from that clock on the wall. When you don't have the luxury of a regularly scheduled existence, the "stopwatch" system outlined at the end of chapter 3 may help you find the time you need to make an accelerated transit to your new career in writing. Finally, in order to become productive and professional, your philosophy must be optimism. Unswerving optimism. Or at least optimism with a built-in swerve override. Self-respect and self-confidence must sustain you against those who might take a long time recognizing the value of your writing. The road is long, even though the journey becomes a pleasure once it is embraced. The length of the journey depends on faith, in yourself and in the work you've undertaken. You need to become one of the positive people in order to pursue a career in writing and remain human at the same time. Once your will is engaged, press on resolutely and you can do anything you dream of, decide upon, and plan to do. When others distract you, tell them you're doing important work and can't come down.   Kenneth Atchity