writing routine

I've been following the Daily Routines blog and reading about the habits of people like Barack Obama, Stephen King, Immanuel Kant and Ingmar Bergman.

Instead of the routine of a successful writer, here's the routine of someone who might end up becoming a full time writer if he's really lucky but will likely remain primarily a technology worker. But why would someone want to read about probable failure when they should be trying to learn about and mimic success? Let it serve as a warning.

I don't write every day but when I do write I stumble out of bed around 8:30 or so when I hear Sarah close the door on her way to work. I don't take a shower or eat anything and I usually just put on the clothes I wore yesterday or whatever is lying on the floor next to the bed. I slip on $8 Walmart shoes I bought years ago and throw on my yellow Fat Tire baseball cap. If it's cold I put on my stocking cap instead. I grab my pen, keys and wallet off the coffee table and put them into my pockets. If I'm lucky I remember to bring my notebook before I'm physically outside the apartment. I then head out the door and walk down the block to the coffee shop. I find my way groggily to the counter and mumble something to the barista that she recognizes as an order for a regular 12 oz cup of coffee to stay. I remove the coffee from the counter, sit down at a small table by the window and begin to wake my mind by reading the nonsense I wrote on previous days.

About 10 to 15 minutes later I actually start writing. I start by thinking about how I want to work on microhistorical fiction or the sci-fi novel but by then I'm already thinking about philosophy so I write just to get it out of my head. I keep thinking about or writing philosophy until I finish that first cup.

I go up to the counter and get a 50 cent refill while internally rededicating myself to writing fiction or sci-fi. I sit back down and start to write in earnest. When I really get into writing I don't drink the coffee as fast but I always start getting hungry and shaky somewhere in the middle of the second cup. I keep working in spite of the shakes. Sometimes I start getting anxious and just down that second cup of coffee and head home. I generally get back sometime between eleven and eleven forty-five. Depending on the day the second session ends up being wasted thinking and writing philosophy as well. Today I was lucky and actually got four journal pages solely devoted to the sci-fi novel.

Borges on writing

Quotes from Borges' when he gave the Norton Lectures (from This Craft of Verse).

"[W]hat I have read is far more important than what I have written. For one reads what one likes-- yet one writes not what one would like to write but what one is able to write." (p. 98)

(on Huck Finn) "[T]here should be something pleasing to the imagination in the very framework of the book [...] We feel the idea of the black man, the boy, of the raft, of the Mississippi, of the long nights--that these ideas are somehow agreeable to the imagination, are accepted by the imagination." (p. 102)

"One knows so little about oneself that, when I read Don Quixote, I thought I read it because of the pleasure I found in the archaic style and in the adventures of the knight and the squire. Now I think that my pleasure lay elsewhere--that it came from the character of the knight. I am not now sure that I believe in the adventures, or in the conversations between the knight and the squire; but I know that I believe in the knight's character, and I suppose that the adventures were invented by Cervantes in order to show us the character of the hero. [... Similarly,] I am sure that I believe in Sherlock Holmes and in the strange friendship between him and Dr. Watson. [...] I suppose the future will bring all things in the long run, and so we may imagine a moment when Don Quixote and Sancho, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson will still exist, though all their adventures may have been blotted out. Yet men, in other languages may still go on inventing stories to fit those characters--stories that should be as mirrors to the characters." (p. 103-104)

"The Gnostics said the only way to be rid of a sin is to commit it, because afterwards you repent it." (advocating trial & error in writing p.109)

"Free verse is far more difficult than the regular and classic forms [...] the ear is led to expect something, and then it does not get what it expects. Something else is given to it; and that something else should be, in a sense, a failure and also a satisfaction." (p. 109-110)

"Had I to give advice to writers (and I do not think they need it, because everyone has to find out things for himself), I would tell them simply this: I would ask them to tamper as little as they can with their own work. I do not think tinkering does any good. The moment comes when one has found out what one can do--when one has found one's natural voice, one's rhythm. Then I do not think that slight emendations should prove useful.

When I write, I do not think of the reader (because the reader is an imaginary character), and I do not think of myself (perhaps I am an imaginary character also), but I think of what I am trying to convey and I do my best not to spoil it." (p. 116-117)

"When I am writing something, I try not to understand it. I do not think intelligence has much to do with the work of a writer." (p. 118)

I didn't find Borges' insights to be especially profound but I was grateful for the advice on writing. I started journaling again in 2008 and it seems my pen mostly wants to write philosophishy stuff but I'm trying to retrain it. I think I squashed my philosophy bug so that may help. Borges made it obvious that I'm still making most of the mistakes of a young man and that there's really only one cure to bad writing... more writing (trial and error). Borges also thinks French writers are too self conscious.¹ But I love those Frenchies (well, especially Hadot, Camus, Montaigne). I may still take Borges' advice on that point.

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[1] "I think that one of the sins of modern literature is that it is too self-conscious. For example, I think of French literature as being one of the great literatures in the world (I don't suppose anybody could doubt this). Yet I have been made to feel that French authors are generally too self-conscious. A French writer begins by defining himself before he quite knows what he is going to write. He says: What should (for example) a Catholic born in such-and-such province, and being a bit of a socialist, write? Or: How should we write after the Second World War? I suppose there are many people all over the world who labor under those illusory problems." (p. 118-119)