Cory Doctorow is one of those writers who’s able to write so much so quickly, I’m left scratching my head.
I’ve only read one of his 30 or so fiction and non-fiction books — The Lost Cause — and while that’s already a prolific catalog, the guy also writes not one but two blogs. Pluralistic, his daily link blog, intimidates me: how does this guy have so much to say every day? And how can he balance this with writing books, finding interesting articles on the internet, and maintain a life with chores, eating, and sleeping?
So I did what anybody would do: I read a bunch of essays and interviews with him while watching figure skating on the Olympics.
Like a lot of writers, he has some straightforward advice:
“I have a daily writing target. It’s been as little as one page/day (250 words) and as much as eight pages/day (2,000 words), and I hit it every single day, no matter where I am. I take off weekends, my birthday, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. It’s my job.” —Cory Doctorow
It’s not exactly a secret that many writers have a daily writing goal. Make it a habit, and page by page, a book is made. 20 minutes a day can easily become a book a year.
But I get in my own way. I’m too big a critic of the words I’m writing. Or committing to a routine feels like exercise, and I eventually quit, then feel bad about it.
Cory Doctorow’s got some good advice here, too:
“My writing epiphany [was] there was no relation between the way I felt about the words I was writing and their objective quality. … The biggest predictor of how I felt about my writing was how I felt about me. If I was stressed, underslept, insecure, sad, hungry, or hungover, my writing felt terrible. If I was brimming over with joy, the writing felt brilliant.” — Cory Doctor
In another interview, he says that he tries to find 20 minutes to write toward his daily goal, focusing on doing nothing else while he’s working on it. (Here he contradicts himself and mentions he writes on weekends, too, to keep the momentum going.)
I’ve left a lot of writing half-finished and unpublished because I didn’t like how it was coming out. “It doesn’t matter if the words feel right — just write ’em. You’ll know if they’re any good later,” is his advice.
“You can’t tell what’s good and what’s bad while you’re writing it. Don’t ever rewrite until the whole thing is done. Once you start thinking about what you’re writing, you lose the ability to stop writing it,” Doctorow says.
That might help you write more. But even then, how does he manage to write a daily blog and work on multiple books at once?
At my day job I usually write four or five technical blog posts a month, and my head starts to swirl if I’m working on more than three at a time.
And writing for yourself after a day of work can be hard. It’s usually the last thing I want to do after a few Zoom calls. So you tell yourself you’ll write when you have more time — maybe this summer you’ll build a special writing desk, buy a few craft books, and write for two hours each morning.
That’s a good way to get no writing done, Doctorow says:
“Forget advice about finding the right atmosphere to coax your muse into the room. Forget candles, music, silence, a good chair, a cigarette, or putting the kids to sleep. It’s nice to have all your physical needs met before you write, but if you convince yourself that you can only write in a perfect world, you compound the problem of finding 20 free minutes with the problem of finding the right environment at the same time. When the time is available, just put fingers to keyboard and write.”
He visited a hypnotherapist after five year’s of writer’s block who helped him understand that he was capable of writing from anywhere:
“I spend a lot of time on the road (and used to spend more) and I burned out the habit/addiction to requiring anything apart from a keyboard and a moment in order to write. Basically I sat down and typed every time I had a moment where someone wasn’t asking me to talk to them. I’d get up and type, type in the breakfast room, type in the taxi, type while waiting to give a lecture, type on the way back to the taxi, etc.”
That’s worked for me. I write ideas into my pocket notebook every day (I’m usually too shy to do it in social situations, so I end up scribbling in the bathroom fairly often). I’ve typed small chunks of text on my iPhone in a parking lot, in between meetings, or while watching tv. Voice notes are great for exercising and driving.
Austin Kleon keeps a waterproof notebook by his pool.
And having a practice where you force yourself to sit down and write out all those ideas without distractions is great too. Van Neistat likens writing ideas down like grabbing a bullet as it whizzes by you.
Doctorow joked that he starts writing first thing each day — after he’s gotten up, done the daily blog, fed his kids, had breakfast, gone to the office and the post office, and watered the plants.
But even with life’s responsibilities, the trick is the same: just carve out 20 minutes to write 250 words. It accumulates.
Writing every day builds: blog posts become fleshed-out articles become short stories and books. The daily link blog, link by link, post by post, can accrete into a few books a year.
If you’ve been unable to get as much writing done, try setting a daily goal, blocking the distractions for 20 minutes, and don’t worry too much about how it’s coming out.
Then come back and do it the next day. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up with a few blogs and 30 books.