Write a book, make millions, it's easy.

Oh you poor thing, struggling with your great American novel…

Each time I write a book I make myself crazy for months (years) on end and say, I’m never doing this again! Then a couple years after the book comes out, I’ve forgotten how deeply uncomfortable spending all that time in my head is and I decide to do it all over again.

Now I’m writing my 4th book and hitting my 4th book induced nervous breakdown.

All this to say:

1. Can someone please stop me the next time I dive into another book to remind me that I am about to embark on an emotional roller coaster, and say:

   Are you SURE you want to do this ?!

2. It really rankles me and every other writer/ author/ artist/ filmmaker I know who pours in blood, sweat and tears when someone asks “are you using AI to create your work?”

BITCH, Please. I’d rather suffer.

I was feeling the pain of the process when I came across a viral post of James Bond author Ian Flemings’s writing schedule making the rounds, which made me realize I’d been doing it all wrong.

In an interview Fleming gave to Playboy magazine in 1964, he describes his average working day:

I get up with the birds, which is to say about half past seven, because they wake one up, and then I go and bathe in the ocean before breakfast. We don’t have to wear a swimsuit there, because it’s so private; my wife and I bathe and swim a hundred yards or so and come back and have a marvelous proper breakfast with some splendid scrambled eggs made by my housekeeper, who’s particularly good at them, and then I sit out in the garden to get a sunburn until about ten.

Only then do I set to work. I sit in my bedroom and type about fifteen hundred words straightaway, without looking back on what I wrote the day before. Then about a quarter past twelve, I chuck that and go down, with a snorkel and spear, around the reefs looking for lobsters or whatever there may be, sometimes find them, sometimes don’t, and then I come back, I have a couple of pink gins, and we have a very good lunch, ordinary Jamaican food, and I have a siesta from about half-past two until four.

Then I sit again in the garden for about an hour or so, have another swim, and then I spend from six to seven – the dusk comes very suddenly in Jamaica; at six o’clock it suddenly gets very dark – doing another five hundred words. I then number the pages, of which by that time there are about seven, put them away in a folder, and have a couple of powerful drinks, then dinner, occasionally a game of Scrabble with my wife – at which she thinks she is very much better than I am, but I know I’m the best – and straight off to bed and into a dead sleep.”

Fleming’s James Bond series have sold over 100 million copies and been adapted into a multi-billion dollar film franchise, so maybe he knew a thing or two about tapping into the flow?

But if we are talking sheer numbers, author Danielle Steel has written more than 210 books which have sold over one BILLION copies. She’s been raking in the dough for decades, spending those hard earned royalties on real estate and haute couture. When she’s not ensconced behind her desk, you can find her front row at Chanel and Dior.

Steel’s writing schedule is much stricter than Fleming’s was. Sometimes she typed for 20-23 hours a day. As she wrote on her blog:

I write in old, comfy wool nightgowns, bundled up at my desk. I don’t see anyone. I don’t comb my hair for weeks. And my only concessions to beauty are soap and toothpaste. I just don’t exist while I’m writing, except to tell the story. And if readers say they couldn’t put it down, it’s because I didn’t either, and if they cried, so did I. People bring me food on trays and I literally don’t stop until I’m finished. I don’t go out, I don’t have fun. But I get to go out and play when I finish the book!!!

I have trouble sitting for more than 8 hours straight, and like Fleming, need to get up to move my body. I was thinking about how to incorporate the mindset of an athlete training for a big game into my writing routine when I found author Haruki Murakami’s schedule in a 2004 issue of The Paris Review:

When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at 4:00 am and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for 10km or swim for 1500m (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at 9:00 pm. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.

Earlier this summer, I was stuck with a case of writer’s block. Instead of staring at a blank screen, I took a long walk, sat on a rock and reasoned with myself. If the muse wasn’t striking, I shouldn’t force it. Strangely, the very moment I allowed myself permission to let go, inspiration struck. It’s been off to the races since.

That said, writing is not a social activity, so locking in and locking down into a rinse and repeat routine (wake up, workout, write, swim, eat, sleep) can be a lonely grind. I was in need of a spirit animal when I came across Fleming’s Playboy interview and it revived my faith in the process. As I hit the halfway point of my new book, I plan to channel a bit of Bond, a dash of Steel and, if I can set my alarm a bit earlier, a Murakami sprint as I make my way to the finish line.

Wish me luck send memes!

xxLiz

P.S. Thank you to Emily Kirkpatrick for this lovely feature in Interview magazine about what I do when I am procrastinating.

And

P.P.S. Thank you also to fellow authoress Ottessa Moshfegh for getting me off the laptop and into a real writing break over the weekend. Sometimes you just need a reminder to get your nose out of your own book. Here are Ottessa and I in front of my favorite bookstore, D.G. Wills, where Dennis, the owner, keeps dirty books behind the counter for me. He put Ottessa and my books in the window as a lovely welcome surprise.