15 Minutes a Day

Posted by Emily M. | November 8, 2007 | 10 Comments

That’s all Shannon Hale asks of herself right now . She’s the LDS Newberry Honor-winning author of several young adult fantasy novels (and Austenland). I am a big fan–I love her polished, lyrical writing, and I love that she’s an LDS mother taking care of her kids and her passion for writing at the same time.

Two things stand out to me as she describes her writing process:

1-Up until the birth of her daughter, she wrote at least 500 words a day, five days a week. She now writes 15 minutes a day, more if she can squeeze it in, but at least that.

2-She rewrites. Her book Austenland went through twelve drafts. I love that she’s letting us in on the writing process–her books don’t emerge fully formed, and she acknowledges the work it takes to write something worth reading.

I think 15 minutes a day is a realistic goal–it’s small, it’s accessible, and when you do it, it makes you feel good. You’ve heard of National Write a Novel Month? I’m not up to that right now. I would like to be, but I’m not.

But National 15 Minutes of Writing a Day? Maybe that I can do. I’m going to give it a try–everyone who writes 15 minutes a day, five days a week, through the rest of November (see, not even a full month) gets… what do you get? Bragging rights, that’s all I’ve got to offer. But hey, you gotta start someplace.

Category: Writing Workshop

Comments

10 Responses to “15 Minutes a Day”

Liz
November 8th, 2007 @ 12:29 pm

You know, I’ve been attempting to participate in NaNoWriMo, and it is HARD! I’m 8 days in and about 6,000 words behind. Sigh.

I’m not giving up (yet), but I must say, I really like the 15 minutes a day idea. Maybe I should have started with something like that. My self-image would probably be better right now…
Lisa H.
November 8th, 2007 @ 4:16 pm

Thanks for the post, Emily and the reminder that “by small means the Lord can bring about great things.” (1 Nephi 16:29.) I love Shannon Hale and enjoyed reading her link, too. I’m always fascinated by the writing process and in particular, the writing process of busy moms. I have only been writing “seriously” for the past year and a half and I have been pleasantly surprised at how compatible motherhood is with the writing life. For me, it’s all about getting up early, multi-tasking, and taking advantage of those little blips of time. I just did a post on my blog about Elizabeth Kostova, the author of The Historian. It took her TEN years to write that book and she did it fifteen minutes at a time. That was so inspiring to me!

Keep going Liz! I just wrote a post on my blog about my NaNoWriMo experience. (I lasted one lousy day!) I’m going to do it some year though, just not this one. I hope you succeed! (And if you don’t, don’t beat yourself up over it–you’ve attempted something really challenging and that’s amazing in itself!)
Johnna
November 8th, 2007 @ 9:56 pm

I wanted to NaNoWriMo this year, but November has already clobbered me.

My goal now is to do morning pages.

That 15 minutes a day, by Shannon Hale no less, is very inspiring. Thanks for posting, Em.
Emily M.
November 8th, 2007 @ 11:09 pm

Go Liz! Go Lisa! Go Johnna! Seriously, I think even fifteen minutes a day of writing can be a good thing. I admire people who can do more, but it’s great for me to know that small goals can accomplish good things as well.
Michelle
November 8th, 2007 @ 11:18 pm

Hm. The idea of writing 15 minutes a day seems a bit difficult to me because usually it takes at least that for me to get into the ‘flow’ of writing. If I stop there, I have to start over to get into that flow the next day and my writing would be choppy. I like the concept of a little bit each day, but the reality of how writing works for me would make that sort of counterproductive in a way. Anyone else experience this?
Michelle
November 8th, 2007 @ 11:19 pm

Not that I’m a writer like Shannon Hale is, so what do I know?
Emily M.
November 11th, 2007 @ 12:59 am

Michelle, I know what you mean. It’s hard to get into the flow and stay there. For me, fifteen-minute bursts are most valuable when I’m freewriting, trying to capture, as Natalie Goldberg says, “first thoughts.” Piecing all the first thoughts together takes more than fifteen minutes. That requires silence and concentration, for me, and it doesn’t happen very often. But every so often, a ten-minute freewriting burst has given me usable essay material.
Sarah
November 25th, 2007 @ 9:23 am

The key to NaNoWriMo is to pretend the world doesn’t exist for twenty or thirty days. Now that I have 55k, I can blog again. ^_^

Fifteen minutes a day, I don’t do — I do five to fifteen minute bursts, though. Once I get going I tend not to stop, but on my off-days I write about 200 words (that’s five minutes) and spend about a half hour thinking/reading through the story. At the moment on my NaNo I’m in a holding pattern (one burst a day,) as part two wasn’t fully plotted before the month began. My poor characters have been having one conversation for three days now.

Incidentally, if you do your plotting in October (I have tips! Lots of tips!) and you type about 45-80wpm, you can do all the writing you need for NaNo in less than an hour a day.

Oh, and if you want to join a group that does writing challenges along the lines of fifteen minutes a day, see this place:

http://fmwriters.com/

They support non-fiction as well as fiction writers, which is why I like them.
annegb
November 26th, 2007 @ 11:21 pm

I’m with Michelle. I’d have a hard time stopping at 15 minutes once I got started.
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