SITTING IN THE CHAIR
One of the hardest parts about writing is doing the work. Facing the blank page is intimidating as you stare into the white void, only broken up by the blinking cursor on the screen. You lose yourself in the snowstorm of nothing…and then you pick up your phone, turn on the TV, or convince yourself that you need to get up and do this one thing quickly, and you’ll be back on your computer or scribbling in your notebook.
You’re serious.
You’ll get it done.
But, unless you’re sitting in the chair, you’re not doing shit.
And I emphasize the chair part of this.
In his book, ON WRITING, Stephen King talks about the importance of having your spot to work. That space is there just for this moment so that when you sit down, you know you’re going to work.
Since writing currently only costs me money, I spend my days working as a real estate photographer, something I’ve been doing for…shit…close to 5 or 6 years. It’s a great gig where I can do a few shoots a day and make good money. It’s a lot of driving and podcast time but also excellent thinking time. Thinking time is crucial to writing. It’s the prep, the training time so that when you get to that chair, you’re prepared to do some snow shoveling.
My partner is a school teacher, which turns out to be great for my schedule. Before we got together, you wouldn’t catch me up earlier than 9 am, just enough time to get ready and go to work. But, because she has to be up at 6 am to get ready, so am I. By the time she leaves at 7, I’ve been up for an hour, I have my cappuccino ready (hey, I didn’t drink any coffee until I was 32, so I’m making up for lost time), and I’m fully awake. For years I would waste those mornings 3-4 hours mostly doing nothing but watching TV shows and lazing about.
What a fucking waste.
Because I would complain that I had no time to write, I’d try to work on weekends when my partner wanted to, I don’t know, spend time with me. I’d get annoyed with myself, feeling like I was wasting my life and time and not doing what I wanted. I had all that thinking time stored up, but how many of those projects were realized? Hardly any.
What fucked me up was a podcast I listened to with Jeff Lemire.
Jeff came up in comics during the period that I was not reading. When I returned, I was doing head spins, trying to figure out how this guy could be so prolific. Jeff draws his books and writes a dozen others. And they’re fucking great. It’s not like he’s just pushing paper to get paid and move on to the next book. Everything he writes has heart, character, and superb storytelling on every page. Shit, reading Sweet Tooth the first time fucked me up because I live in a house where we have four rescue dogs.
But, what blew me away about Jeff was when I heard him lay out his work schedule.
Jeff treats his writer/artist work as his main job. He goes to his studio and works an 8-hour day at his drawing table doing the work. Okay, that’s great; that makes sense. So, when does he write all these other books? Every free moment he gets.
He talked about writing scripts while he helped his kids with their homework or a few minutes here and there throughout his post-studio day. How can he do this? It’s because Jeff knows the value and power of that thinking time. Jeff understands that the hard work of writing is figuring out your story in your head, moving things around, trying to make it work, thinking about the characters, thinking about their journeys, so that when he’s in the chair, it's just typing.
Ain’t that the truth, Ruth.
So, how do I make my writing life better?
I’m sitting in that chair.
Last week I said fuck it. I had a free day because the rain was forecast, and I set a challenge to myself. I’ve been developing a TV show idea for a few years now (I’m not telling you mother fuckers, you’ll see it when it happens!) on my own, in the darkness. I wrote the pilot, rewrote it, and rewrote it some more until I’m pretty sure it’s perfect. But it’s just a pilot; it’s not as fulfilling on its own when I have so much more story to tell. So, on my free rainy day, I said to myself, I’m going to write an episode of TV in one day. I’m going to write a 27-page script from 7 am until whenever the hell I finish. I will prove to myself that I can type like a mother fucker and get the work done.
And I fucking did it.
It was exhausting, and by the end of the day, I was so burnt out that my mind was buzzing, but I proved to myself that I could do it. I’m done wasting time.
I'm doing the work instead of bullshitting in the morning and then regretting all that lost time. I’m here right now. I said goodbye to my girl today, kissed her, fed my dogs, then sat in the chair at 7:20 am and got to work on this piece.
What’s next for my day?
Well, I’ve only got two hours before I hit the road, and my post-work day is clearing our rose bed so I can lay down some mulch and make sure my girl has something beautiful to look at. This is the only writing time I have.
I’m going to work on episode 3 of my show. I don’t have the time to marathon like last week, but my goal is to hit page 15 today. I will beat it because I’m going to sit in the chair and do the work.
I’ve done my thinking; now it’s time to do the typing.
NIGHT OF THE COMET
This week Attila and I are starting something fun. As part of this DELUXE edition of NIGHT OF THE COMET, we are doing a roundtable-style interview with two great people, Manny Gomez from MONKEYS FIGHTING WITH ROBOTS, who has interviewed me for each of my projects and is an all-around great guy, and Ray Carcases who’s been a champion of my work and did a great video showing off the first version of the book.
You can watch that here:
NIGHT OF THE COMET: Review by Ray
Doesn’t that get you pumped up? This is a great place to grab a copy if you haven't read the book. We’re launching our Zoop next month, and you can sign up for it HERE.
We’ll have add-ons like Attila doing unique ink drawings on postcard-size pages and original pages from the book.
Check out pages on my Instagram, @spacstationofzed, and be wowed if you aren’t already. Attila’s special, and he makes my words look good.
END OF TRANSMISSION
I do much the same, i run over dialog or scenes, imagine images whenever i have some spare brain cycles. Driving to the fencing club I run lines with my characters trying to achieve maximum cool. I think about page layouts and timing and perspective shots.
I remember reading an ancillary to the ten-thousand hours of practice that active visualuzation counts. You may meet a master of a craft with 10,000 hours of practice. You know true mastery of a craft when you meet the one with millions of hours of practice because he has been exercising his craft in his head every minute of every day. When it seems like someone has effortlessly elevated their craft without practice, you probably didn't see the wheels churning in their head.
Great stuff man. Nothing is hard, it is all just work. You just have to sit in the chair and do it.
Best of luck! Can't wait to see everything come to fruition!