“If you’re not having fun, then why are you doing this?”

Kealey writes on the Caltrain everyday. He finds himself writing 2-3 pg scenes. It’s an hour of writing time back and forth. After he gets back to the city, he usually goes to a coffee house and puts in another hour of writing so that he can ride out his creative energy. Saturday is his big writing day. He goes to the UCSF library, spending 3 hours in morning and 2 hours in afternoon. He’s a very flexible writer. He sees writing as a marathon, not a sprint.

McNeely finds it hard to write without a large block of time. He can fiddle around at his computer for an hour.

For Watrous, it depends on her stage in the writing process. She works subtly, a little bit each day. During the rough draft stage, she works a steady 3-5 hours each day. The first draft is hard. She doesn’t write that linearly. She keeps going back to scenes. She has header and footer notes on her computer that say, “Move forward, ” and “If you’re not having fun, why are you doing this? ” She keeps many versions of her scenes. After writing, she goes through and highlights what she likes and what’s wrong. Once she sees the ending, she really wants to get there. In a 2-month period, she has written 200 pages. She just waits for that time when she sees the ending and works off of her excitement and fear.

Kealey writes on the train, commuting to Stanford. A lot of his sections are about the same length — whatever he can write during the commute. Hilton Obenzinger commented that he once spoke with a graduate student who wrote her whole dissertation on the train. She just bought a Caltrain pass and rode up and down the line between San Francisco and San Jose.

Kealey keeps a sheet of paper with his ideas. He has a plot point or two in mind to give him direction.

Watrous works with causality, fueled by a “deluded optimism. ” McNeeley has note cards that he moves around on a table, revising. There is a temptation to start from page 1 and revise. However, when revising on the draft itself, it is hard to delete things. It is much easier to put things on a page than to take them out. Therefore, Kealey suggests that you print out a draft. Open a new blank doc and insert what you like from the old draft into it. You can’t do a revision within a draft.

Watrous believes that real writing comes in the revision. For her, it is the funnest part. On a computer, she believes that you miss the proportion of each scene by scrolling.

When these writers get stuck, they read things, try to get away from their work, try not being so inside the problem. Watrous does a fun repetitive task. She believes that you’re working even when you’re not at the computer writing. Kealey works on multiple projects and enjoys declaring a “winner of the day. ” He suggests having 2 people to listen to you, 2 safe listeners. They can read your piece and tell you what they find interesting, what they’d like more of.

The element of the novel that Kealey tries to focus on is narration (what’s going on inside the heads of characters). We need to know what the characters are thinking, especially when it’s not what they say. McNeely and Watrous try to focus on description, dialogue, and plot. McNeely is uncomfortable with omniscience and the camera POV. He views the title as the first line lyric.

Kealey: Find a novel you admire and read it 3 times for structure. Piggyback that model for a while. Pick 4 times every week to write for 2 hours. Really hold on to that time and make the most of it. Write 7 pages or 3 sentences. At least you can say, “I wrote something last time, I can write something again. ” Always get words on the page. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. You need to like your characters, like interacting with them. Make sure it’s fun. Maintain a sense of play. Be excited about it! You’re your first reader. For example, add a tiger just because you want to have a tiger.

Kealey suggests finishing a scene before jumping in to revise it. He also says to read your work to someone and to write a scene for a specific person. Watrous says to write your novel for yourself. Write the book that’s missing, that you would like to see on the shelf.

Response:

I found this installment of How I Write extremely valuable, especially since I am about to embark on writing a novel of my own. Each of the panelists had very distinct, quirky methods of writing, and I’m glad that they so freely shared the methods of their madness with us. Three main points that stuck with me were Kealey’s discipline in creating a writing routine, Watrous’ reminder to herself, “If you’re not having fun, then why are you doing this? ” and Kealey’s suggestion to always revise onto a new document. My writing style is a lot like McNeely’s. I require large amounts of time to write, and I often find myself wasting the small pockets of time that I do have. However, I would like to become a more disciplined, flexible writer like Kealey. I liked his idea of writing on the train because it gives you the illusion of productivity, being in constant motion. Watrous’ headers really stuck with me because writing should be fun, something you choose to do. However, there are many times that I make it a chore in my mind, and I should revise that way of thinking. Finally, Kealey’s suggestion to always revise onto a new document shows how much writing is about psychology, tricking yourself in that “deluded optimism” that Watrous mentioned.