Week 2–4 of Writing Like Murakami
So we hit a little snag
In my defense, work has been kicking my butt as of late and nothing else got done.
After a glorious first week of getting some work in on a new story for Project Runaway, another creative-in-another-way project at work needed my attention. All of my attention. Even attention when I wasn’t at work.
The excuse is this: Another project that wasn’t my own with a too soon deadline not only sucked my time but my energy. So for the past couple of weeks, writing didn’t get done.
Welcome to the latest update on writing/revising like Haruki Murakami, novelist, essayist, memoirist and all around writing bad ass. Two weeks ago, I wrote about approaching my writing the Murakami way according to one of his essays in Novelist as Vocation.
Photo by Sergey Zolkin on Unsplash
Let’s rehash the Murakami plan for writing and revision as outlined in his essay included in the memoir “Novelist as Vocation.”
The plan has several steps with plenty of rest. It’s meant for novel writing, however, the project I’m working on, which I’m calling Project Runaway, is a short story collection. So we adjusted for that.
- Focus on one thing at a time
- Clean your space — physically and metaphorically (like the to do list)
- Write a certain set of pages (2–3 for me) cold and detached.
And thus, one of the tenants of this experiment — clean your space — now makes the most sense. Here is one of the many places I have failed. Yes, failed. More than once. Are we surprised?
What was more surprising about this experiment is the amount of discipline, more than expected, that is needed to complete it.
a writer
What happens when you don’t clean your space?
When Murakami says to clean your space, he means it several ways. Clean your desk and your area of work. That makes sense. A clean area means that you can focus on things without fidgeting. That’s not the problem.
The problem was cleaning my metaphorical space. There was too much on my to do list and not enough delegating and purging. There wasn’t enough saying no to things. There wasn’t enough prioritizing my work. And THAT took me away from the writing project so quickly that I didn’t even notice!
A work project, instead of my creative work, took over my time and my energy because while I may have been done with work for the day, the energy and the mental fortitude to create was not there. On top of the project there were other things that also needed my attention in the past couple of weeks including grading papers and family obligations.
It’s not an excuse but an explanation.
When I looked up, two weeks had gone by without one new word on Project Runaway. So I had to reconsider my plan and rededicate myself to it. That meant I needed to look at what I needed and had to give up and what I could give to other people and what I had to let go of. This was tough because while I’d like to do things myself (book stuff comes to mind) I’m had to be okay with someone else doing the work for me and doing it their way.
This was a tough pill to swallow.
What has worked?
What has been surprising in this experiment so far is that limiting myself to writing only two to three pages a day had been THE BEST THING EVER.
I can’t put my finger on it but that idea that I am structured to no more than three pages means I am being purposeful with what I’m doing. I don’t feel a sense of overwhelm with just a general idea of “today I need to write”. There’s a plan — write the next three pages, hit save, walk away.
That also means I am, in general, ending the story in the middle of action. So then, when I am returning to the page, I am starting with an action or a section that I can pick up easily. There’s a sense of accomplishment that is surprising. I don’t beat myself up because I only did three pages. I am excited because I did three pages.
Another thing that is surprising is how long it takes me to write the three pages. Some days it’s 20 easy minutes. Other days it’s a hard two hours. Yes, even with only writing three pages, there is a variety of challenges. I find that the hard days are when I’m trying to sneak in a page here and there between other things (remember that clearing desk metaphor from earlier?) or when I am stressed with pressing matters. It has not been because of writer’s block or what I had written on the page. At least not yet.
The easy days are the uninterrupted 20 minutes when my brain is running on all cylinders. This is when I force myself away from the work
I’m also not focusing on any other creative work. While I’m still doing promotions for the book (I have a couple of readings this month) and applying for things, I’m not creating new work or submitting work. This has its plus and minuses here. This should be the time where I need to be submitting work and I do have somethings that can be submitted. However, I’ll need to tweak it and edit it more. That will definitely take my focus.
Other than my newsletters, Project Runaway is the only thing I’m working on and that’s a bit freeing. From what I have learned from the publishing process, this time here is the milk and honey part where you have complete control. Once the project is finished and is fine tuned for publishing, you no longer have full say on things. So I’m enjoying my project, three pages at a time.
What’s next?
The goal is to use Murakami’s method to finish and revise this one story in Project Runaway. That’s what I intend to do. So then the next step is to finish this first draft of the story and sit on it for one week. Although I am enjoying writing this story and this method so far, I am looking forward to a week off to just not do anything. Or read. Maybe I’ll read.
I am looking forward to the week off because that means that next step is the revision process. That’s when stories come together. It’s the carpentry of the work. Here is where we see where we are with things. Is this thing really going to work or have I wasted my time?
Well, we’ll find out soon don’t you think?
— Icess
