In our new AG series, freelancer Greg Lindsay discusses writing his first book. He’s filing monthly dispatches detailing the struggles and successes of writing the first draft of Aerotropolis, due this spring. In this third installment, he attempts to return to work after his wedding interrupted his flow.
I haven’t learned much since my last column, because I haven’t been writing much, either. But I did do one extremely fun thing in that span that I hope I will never do again, especially while writing a book: get married.
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And not only did I get married (on November 3rd), which will stop any writing project or attempts to do work of any kind cold, but the wedding itself was followed by a week of sitting on the beach and navigating the frozen streets of Montreal, neither of which was conducive to writing. Not that it didn’t gnaw at me, however. By the end of our stay in Cananda, I was fidgety, distracted, and angry at myself for not working. It wasn’t as if I was about to sit down in our hotel room and start plugging away at the end of our pre-honeymoon (the real thing is two weeks in Tokyo next spring, near the end of the book … I hope), but I knew that was where I should be right that moment, and it was killing me that I wasn’t.
When I finally made it back to my desk the following Monday, however, the opposite had happened. I was too fidgety and distracted to settle in and get to work. Part of it had to do with the fact that I wasn’t prepared — I didn’t have an outline yet for the next chapter, and I was waiting for more material from my co-author — but mostly it was because I was scared. The material had gotten away from me, and I couldn’t psyche myself up enough to chase it. It didn’t help that I essentially had a second wedding bearing down on me, or at least a second reception back at home in Illinois over Thanksgiving. Even if I got back into a rhythm, the holiday trip would knock me off again.
| My fellow author had discovered a secret weapon that had sharpened his focus, removed his self-doubt, and allowed him to plunge ahead to the finish line. |
I was still in this sad state last week when I slipped out of work early to attend a party at Fast Company‘s offices. I had just arrived when I was warmly greeted by Jeff Gordinier, an editor-at-large at Details who I knew in passing but hadn’t seen in years. Jeff has the job most magazine writers dream about — he’s the star writer at a general interest men’s magazine, filing long dispatches and think pieces about whatever catches his eye. He’d spent the past year or so expanding one of those pieces — a rallying cry for now-overlooked “Generation X” — into a book coming out next March, entitled X Saves The World.
It came out quickly in the course of small talk that I was frustrated and miserable, to which Jeff nodded sagely. “The trail goes cold,” he said. He described his own exasperations in trying to write his book, which were made worse by the demands of being a father to two young children, ages five and two. But he’d discovered a secret weapon that had sharpened his focus, removed his self-doubt, and allowed him to plunge ahead to the finish line, and he was going to share with it me. (And no, it wasn’t Adderall.)
It was a self-help book. And its name was The War of Art. Written by novelist/screenwriter Steven Pressfield (who’s most famous for The Legend of Bagger Vance), it’s a thin slip of a book, written as a series of exhortations aimed at anyone who would undertake an epic creative endeavor or personal transformation. I bought a copy the next day.
Pressfield’s organizing principle is the concept of “Resistance,” which stands in for all the forces internal and (seemingly) external that holds one back from creation. Maybe the most common form of Resistance is the endless procrastination only made easier by the Web, while other forms manifest themselves as a fear of failure, or a fear of success, or of obligations to family, friends, and other work. Throughout the book, Pressfield urges the reader to become “a pro,” to put in the work every day and focus one’s energies to the utmost during that time. When we give into Resistance, he says, that’s when writers, artists, et. al are at their most miserable and depressed, lashing out at the people around them because they’re failing to put in the work and they know it (which is exactly how I felt in Montreal).
It was invigorating as hell. “Over the past few weeks I’ve found myself cheesily and annoyingly recommending The War of Art to friends and acquaintances,” including a number of magazine writers and editor struggling with their own books, Jeff wrote the next day via email. “I feel like Joel Osteen.”
“Ironically, though, I didn’t come across The War of Art until I was already finished with the first draft of my own book. D’oh. But when I looked at it, I realized in retrospect that I had fallen prey to pretty much every single one of the bullshit procrastination tricks that Pressfield sheds a glaring light on. Sometimes I wonder how many brilliant books are not being written because of the irresistible magic of YouTube.”
“Magazine writers tend to be hopelessly ADD,” he added in another email. “They’re wired to jump from one topic to another. I mean, over just the past few months at Details I’ve written about a Vietnam War reenactment in the woods of Mississippi, a conference in Texas for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, a Marine from my hometown who was killed in Iraq, the Olly Girls from Sunset Tan, and John Lydon of the Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd. You get used to that pace, and that only makes it harder to stay focused on a book manuscript for months on end”
“You’ll occasionally hear magazine writers complaining about the pace of their work — ‘man, I just wish things would slow down,’ but then a book deal arrives and the pace does settle down and the writer has no idea what to do.”
After reading Pressfield’s book and talking to Jeff, at least I know what to do next, and that’s sit down, close the browser window containing my fantasy football team (my procrastination aid par excellance), and put in the work. It’s time to stare down my Resistance.
Tips on staying focused:
1. Focus on productive hours Once again, it’s not about the quantity of work or clockwatching, but stringing together uninterrupted hours for unbroken concentration. I’ve given up on hitting a word quota-for-quota’s sake, but spending eight hours at my desk and wasting three of them reading blogs isn’t the solution, either.
2. Respond to distractions What I took away from Pressfield’s book and from talking to Jeff is the realization that how I react to interruptions (like my wedding or the holidays) is ultimately more important than seeking to sequester myself for the duration of writing the book. It’s easy to make excuses and get angry (with my wife or myself) that there isn’t enough time in the day; it’s a lot hard to just sit down and do it.
3. Use your ADD effectively Jeff also mentioned in subsequent emails that a few of his more constructive procrastination aids (i.e. assignments for Details and other reporting) actually resulted in great material for the book. Magazine writers burning to scratch their ADD itch might want to pitch stories that can be repurposed later for the book. I intend to do the same thing next month in a possible assignment for Fast Company.
Greg Lindsay is a frequent contributor to mediabistro.com and other publications. He’s working on his first book.
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