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Day 3 of a Three Day Writing Binge

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nakedlunch2

With Chainsaw Mantis finished, today was all about organizing which project to jump into next. Again, waking up without the distraction of 40+ facebook notifications plus messages, texts, snaps, tweets and the rest of the crap was nice. It put my brain right into work mode. Having said that, waking up on a Thursday with no contact with the outside world save my roommate and the counter clerks at the grocery store, I started getting nervous. A LOT can happen from Monday night to Thursday afternoon.

I started getting paranoid that I was missing something. Not facebook drama or set pics from a random super hero movie, but emergencies from family or friends. I hadn’t given anyone the ability to communicate with me, and outside of a facebook post, I didn’t tell anyone I’d be completely unavailable for three days.

But I ignored all that and got to work. I owe a new chapter of Dead Daughter to my newsletter subscribers and I’ve got 12 thousand words started on my next book already. So I got into that and did a fair amount of work till mid evening when I just simply couldn’t take the worry feeling anymore.

Even though my browser blocking software had me locked out of the internet on my computer till 2:45am, I still had my phone. So I turned it on and of course got a deluge of messages and texts and snaps and yada yada yada. Thankfully my worry was for nothing and I just had a bunch of messages and texts encouraging me to get a lot of work done.

In fact, the only thing of note I’d missed all week as the release of the short 80s parody kung fu flick Kung Fury. It was fucking awesome and a great treat to get me back into the world. I made sure to celebrate the completion of Chainsaw Mantis, but also quickly moved on to the next project. You want to keep your momentum going after you finish something. You’re at your damn best after you’ve been killing it with thousands of words a day, and it’s a shame to let that boil simmer back down when you’re on such a roll. But you also have to take the time let it sink in that you just finished a god damn book. You’re a fucking writer and you wrote a fucking thing! That feels amazing, except when you act like it’s no big deal and just trudge on with your life. It is a big fucking deal. A LOT of people can peck at a computer and talk about being a writer. But very few people actually set out and finish a book. Let that have weight. Let yourself feel great about it.

Anyway, so that was my final day in the shark tank. I loved it. I loved writing THE END after a 60 plus page fight scene in Chainsaw Mantis. It’s the longest fight I’ve ever written and I LOVE writing long fights that show character development and plot in the middle of the intense action. Mantis has that in spades.

I had fun writing in my own house, but I probably got 5 thousand less words written than if I’d have gone ahead and rented a hotel. But you know what? I was really comfortable and got to spend 3 full days with Rocco kitty. Now I’m trying to finish up this Dead Daughter chapter so my newsletter subscribers don’t kill me.

I’m going to try to make these 3 day binges a monthly thing. And I’ve already deleted Facebook off my phone. I don’t miss that shit one bit.

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Day 1 of a Three Day Writing Binge

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While I was in the shark tank, I made some notes at the end of my marathon days. Here are the results of day 1:

Locking yourself in a room to write is a lot like sensory deprivation. When you cut off the outside world, the internet, your phone, your friends and family, you’re left with three things.

      1. Body: You become aware of any ailments or diseases you might have or think you have or fear you have. Your arthritis will be ten times worse. Your diabetes will have you feeling drunk and exhausted. Your back pain will have you howling by the end of your first thousand words.

      2. Mind: All your psychoses, your depression, your mommy issues, your panic attacks will rear their ugly heads. You’ll be taking double doses of your favorite anti depressants just to shut the voices in your head up long enough to listen to the voices in your head that tell you your stories.

      3. Spirit: Your faith in yourself as a writer will be tested to its limits. Can you even write? Are you wasting your time typing all of these words? Will anyone even want to read this book? All these hours wasted, will the editor even accept your manuscript?

I planned my latest writing marathon the way I always do. I block off three days several weeks in advance with the understanding that I’ll rent a sleezebag motel in a city far enough away that quitting in the middle of the session would be more of a pain in the ass than just sticking the whole thing through. Generally this method produces good results. So far three of my books have been written this way. And all three have received above average reviews.

But at the last minute, I had a change of heart. I’m not exactly in financial trouble, but the idea of dropping a couple of hundred bucks to write a book that will probably only ever make me a couple of hundred bucks suddenly seemed rather silly. So when my day came to shut off the outside world and start dumping words to page, I elected to have my very first at home marathon.

I have software on my laptop that allows me to lock my web browsers down for as long as I want. I set it to 72 hours and turned off my phone before I went to sleep the night before the marathon was to begin.

Seems like such a simple thing, doesn’t it? Why don’t I just turn my phone back on or uninstall then reinstall my browsers? It’s just simple psychology. Or at least it is with me. As long as I put a single barrier between myself and the outside world, I have all the willpower necessary to stay focused and get the work done. But one flashing notification on my phone, or one click of a mouse to open a web browser and it’s facebook rants, PMs with pretty girls and porn city all day long.

Now on the other side of day 1 (with a possible several hours still left in the air after I write this, depending on how tired I am) I can say that these simple barriers to the internet and my phone have allowed me to accomplish ten times (and counting) my average output in a day, even while dangerously staying withing the comforting walls of my own apartment.

Just like that. I’ve smashed through page after page, and I’m not even pushing myself today. There’s no sense in blowing your load on day 1 to try to get an impressive word count if it’s just going to slow you down in the waning hours of day 3.

Writing is exactly like running in that respect. Pace is everything. Start slow and build up to a comfortable pace. Time yourself by the hour and try to maintain a comfortable word count throughout the day. Soon you’ll find the pages melting away effortlessly while a typical day might yield you half or less pages you’re able to do on a marathon day.

I find that when left with nothing but the irrational fears of my bodily health, the emotional scars of my past, and the self doubt about my abilities as a writer, I’ve only allowed myself one direction to move. Like a rat in a maze moves ever toward the cheese, I zero in on my story and do my best to leave all of my real life baggage behind. If my only options are to confront my life choices or tell a story, I will choose telling a story every time.

Day 1 of a three day writing binge in the books, so to speak.

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