Gennifer Choldenko

Writing routine

While I’m writing, I do have little rules around the internet. I’m allowed to check my email, but not return it unless it’s from my editor or agent and I’m not allowed to surf the net. I try to keep a list of things I need to research, and then at the end of the day I’ll go online and find what I need. I’m not rigid about this discipline, but I find it to be a useful guide.

I know a lot of authors do word or page counts. I’m a huge fan of the work of both Linda Sue Park and Katherine Paterson, so you can imagine my delight when I had dinner with Linda a year or so ago and she told me the writing routine she learned from Katherine Paterson. As Linda explained this to me, you start your writing day by revising yesterday’s pages and then generate two new pages. That’s it.

I decided to give it a try. And as it turns out I write many more than two pages a day. In fact, I blew through that novel. Whoa. Fastest novel I’ve ever written. The only problem was...the novel stunk. Yep. Big time bad. And not the kind of cruddy first draft bad that Annie Lamott talks about in her terrific book Bird by Bird either.

Does this mean I’m going to dump this work? Nope. But because I went so far with it, before it was ready to be written, the revision process is going to be a lot more like starting over than it will be about building on what I have.

It turns out what works for me is time. I need to make certain I block out uninterrupted hours to write or research whatever novel I am currently working on. The key for me is to feel my way along—like I’ve been dropped in a strange building on an unknown street in a country I’ve never been before in the dead of night—and slowly I must feel my way building the world of my novel as I go. The problem with artificial page generation goals is they encourage me to solve plot and character problems quickly instead of well.

What works for me is: trusting myself and my process. What works for me is making sure I keep the world and its demands at bay so that I have the space I need to write the best books I know how to write.

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