A way with words
Tina Makereti ponders those writing days spent more on Twitter than literature.
Tina Makereti
Wednesday, August 10, day two of much-anticipated research/ writing time, 9.05am. I’ve already gone where many writers go to share their woes and procrastinate like mad. People have written articles about how it’s our water cooler; Neil Gaiman calls it the “hive-mind”. Apparently, Twitter needs to know my pain:
Yesterday, writing day: woke 5.30am, too excited to sleep, wrote short true story start to finish, realised whole book will emerge like this. Sweet.
Today, writing day: 9.00am, nada, nothing, nowt. All previous ideas are bad. Feels like swimming in mud. Am terrible writer.
I do not follow this with the wellknown #amwriting or the other one, #amwritingfail. It’s enough to watch the comments and likes accrue throughout the day.
I’m not alone. This is the way it goes. Writing is the best thing in the world when it is happening and a dung heap of despair when it is not. What kind of crazy loser gets a precious writing day and does nothing with it? There will be plenty of recriminations to be had with oneself if one does not hit one’s writing goals.
A friend recently said she imagines I spend my days “reading, writing and looking pensive”. I wish. A writing day is supposed to go like this: wake up, get coffee and toast, write with glorious abandon at least 1000 words, read something inspiring, have lunch, walk the dog, answer emails, do stuff to keep up with the day job.
Occasionally, say one day in 10, it goes exactly like that. More often, possibly even six or seven days out of 10, I do eventually hit the goal. I take a far more circuitous route to get there – one that includes regular pit stops online to gather information, take the pulse of the day and communicate with other humans – but I arrive. I lack the discipline to work without the internet, and it’s nice to touch base with the rest of humanity from time to time. I don’t often listen to the radio or watch TV, so I get all my carefully curated news online.
On the days it’s not nice to touch base with the rest of humankind, because our humanity is in question, it does affect the writing, but I figure that’s the price for being part of this whole horrendous, glorious mess. If I turned it all off, it would just be me in a room writing some words, and they might be good words (or not), but they would be disconnected. Connection is the goal.
The other more blunt goal is a thousand words. That’s my bottom line for feeling like I did something with my day.
Every writer has to have some way of making the words come, and this one works for me. If you write 1000 words a day for long enough, you’ll have a book.
Then there’s rewriting and editing and angst, and sending to publishers – but not until there are words on a page.
If I turned it all off it would just be me in a room writing, and the words would be disconnected.
Tina Makereti’s new novel, The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke (Vintage, $38), is out now.