Manual For Fiction Writers by Block, Lawrence (classic books to read .TXT) 📗

a marathon runner, receives praise simply for having completed his task irrespective of how well he's performed it. No one (except perhaps the runner's mother) congratulates a last-place sprinter for having survived to the finish line of a hundred-meter dash. Nor do people hail one as some sort of conquering hero for having typed the last line of a poem or a short-short.

All this notwithstanding, I submit that the short-story writer has every bit as great a need to apply the carrot and the stick in order to be either productive or commercially successful. While seeing one story through to completion may be a less than Herculean task, it takes no end of discipline to do the same thing repeatedly, coming up with idea after idea, grinding out story after story, and working throughout at the top of one's form.

The novelist has the advantage of momentum; once into a book, he can give it its head and follow where it takes him. He knows, when he gets up in the morning, what he's going to be writing that day. The writer of short fiction, on the other hand, has to keep developing new projects and developing enthusiasm for them as he does so. And he has to do so while marketing previously completed efforts, shrugging off the inevitable rejections that are a part of that marketing process and refusing to allow them to interfere with his steady production of new stories.

Are there tricks of self-discipline? Is there a particular distance to extend the carrot, a special way to apply the stick?

I'm sure there must be, and I live in hope that one day I'll find the formula. Because I've been indefatigably productive over the years, turning out more books than anyone should reasonably have to read, people tend to assume me to be a model of self-discipline. Yet I frequently look at other more industrious writers and castigate myself for my dilatory nature. Doubtless they in turn berate themselves for falling short of their role models?the bee and the ant, I would imagine. And does the ant in turn worry that he's a closet wastrel? I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

Here are a few tricks of the trade:

1. GIVEN WRITING TOP PRIORITY. At executive training programs they like to tell the story of Charles Schwab, then president of U.S. Steel. He told an efficiency expert that he didn't have time to listen to him at length but wondered if the man had any quick suggestions for him. Every morning, the expert said, make a list of the things you have to do that day. List them in order of importance. Then concentrate on the first task until it's finished, without diverting your attention to anything else. Then go on to the second task, completing as much as you comfortably can in the course of the day. Schwab looked at him, shrugged, and asked what he wanted for the suggestion. Try it for a month, the man said, and then pay me what you think it's worth to you. Thirty days later, Schwab put a check in the mail for twenty-five thousand dollars.

The expert's advice is as good as it ever was, and as much so for writers as for steel company presidents. I would suggest that you put writing at the head of each day's list. Make it the first thing you do. Give it priority, not letting yourself be sidetracked until the day's writing is done.

2. SET GOALS FOR YOURSELF. I work mornings, generally putting in two or three hours a day; when I work more than three hours my concentration flags and the work suffers. My objective, however, is not to put in a certain number of hours but to produce a certain quantity of work. More often than not, the goal I set myself is five pages a day.

If I get my five pages written in a flat hour?which does happen now and again?I'll generally call it quits then and there. I may do an extra page or two, if the words are flowing nicely and I want to leave off at a natural stopping point. But I'll feel under no obligation to put in all the hours allotted for purpose of writing.

On the other hand, if I don't reach my five-page goal within three hours, I may stay at the typewriter a little longer and see if I can't fulfill my quota. I'm not absolutely compulsive about this, but I know I'll feel better during the rest of the day if I get my pages written, and I do so when possible.

I can usually manage it?in part because I've had the foresight to set easily attainable goals for myself. I rarely find five pages a day to be a strain; if I did, I'd adjust the quota accordingly. I avoid the trap of raising the goal as I go along, like an assembly line speedup. The object's not to test myself. It's to get my work done.

3. STAY IN THE NOW. The most important single element in enabling me to concentrate on today's work is the ability to make that the only thing I'm concentrating on. If I let myself worry about tomorrow's work and next Tuesday's work, I'm not going to do my best work today. If I'm writing a short story, I can't let myself get diverted into worrying about what story I'll write next, or