Get A
Writing Life
What I learned
about productivity in the newsroom
by Rose Fisk
The newsroom was a crucible in
my life as a writer. Ten years spent
under the gun churning out stories taught me important lessons about staying
productive and focused through life’s hilly landscape of highs and lows.
My humble credentials for
writing this are my years as a newspaper editor and reporter, as well as my
work in the four years since: five complete novels and about a dozen ideas
fleshed out in the form of partials. All
these were done without a contract—yet.
Not writing is easy. Not writing is the wide and smooth downhill
path, while gathering our thoughts on the page is the strenuous uphill battle
to the peak. As a rhetorical alpinist, I
can testify the summit is a lovely place to be.
How is gravity defied day after
day and the pages filled?
I believe that there is a
writing lifestyle we can all develop, a mindset that draws us to work at our
craft everyday. Here are a few things I
learned:
Don’t let distractions
gobble time. The newsroom
could be a very entertaining place, especially the old-style one I worked in
where townspeople were free to stop by. I quickly learned that though all work
and no fun made for a dull girl, too much fun made for a girl who had to work
very late. To me, it came down to a
choice between having dinner with my husband or slogging out stories through
suppertime.
The same is true for my
home-based fiction writing life. If I
let distractions stop me, I wouldn’t get a novel finished, revised and
submitted. Having a manuscript is the
most basic step along the path of being published. So now I tell myself too much fun makes for a
girl with nothing to show.
Don’t let distractions
chew up inspiration. As a
fiction writer, I’ve been in a situation where I’ve had the next ten pages
lined up in my head and ready for keyboard download but I come up with a
zillion reasons not to sit down. These
are the whiny excuses like errands, cleaning or just plain goofing off with
friends or TV.
This is a danger zone. I’ve discovered that if I let the
distractions win, those ten pages start to fade. Had I gone straight to my computer, I would
have had an excellent writing experience.
A week of distraction later, sitting down at the screen is like climbing
that mountain with an extra 50 pounds strapped to my back.
Don’t let the dull thud
stop you. Clunk, thud, clunk is
the dull sound of uninspired writing torturing our ears. There is a big temptation to just stop and do
those errands but my advice: keep
clunking away. Back at the newspaper, I
can remember slogging out what I was sure was the dullest, lousiest story and
sending the homely thing to bed, only to discover when the paper came out it
was a kudos-garnering piece. Conversely,
I’ve had zings of inspiration that turned out to be stinkers.
I find this true with my fiction
efforts, and am often pleasantly surprised.
So don’t let the dull thud stop you. Keep plugging along. You can always revise it later.
Don’t
chain yourself to your desk. Though it sounds like a contradiction, remember to
get up every now and then. I can’t tell
you how many times a great play of words, lead sentence, or structure idea for
a complicated story occurred to me on the way to the coffee machine or lady’s
room.
The important thing for us
home-based fiction writers is not to start rearranging the kitchen cupboard or
making phone calls for the Woman’s Club raffle.
Just make the coffee, grab that fresh inspiration and run with it back
to the computer.
A
pleasant surprise: I’m always
writing. When I was writing full time at the newspaper, I
found I was always writing—when taking a walk, when cleaning my house or
whatever. I’d start thinking about something I was writing and have an idea on
how to do it better. I’ve never had to
stop and jot my ideas down because I knew I’d be at the computer within a day.
Now as a home-based fiction
writer, I’m discovering I don’t need to write it down as long as I’ll be back
at my station soon—it all keeps, and even improves in flavor, as it simmers on
that mysterious back burner of the mind.
A
thick skin helps. I upgraded from thick skin to the Kevlar epidural finish when I made editor
of a small newspaper. You’d be surprised
how upset people can get over something that was printed or left out until the
next issue, but that is a whole different article. The upshot is, if I let these people get to
me, I would be permanently curled in the fetal position. I chose to keep going.
This lesson has been a boon in
the fiction-writing world where the response to months of heartfelt hard work
can be a form-rejection printed on a three-by-five card.
Maybe we should all learn to
toss our heads and say, “What do they know?” when we get those rejections. It’s fun and is far lower in calories than
the chocolate-and-red-wine fix. And if a
rejection is really getting us down, there’s the camaraderie of our fellow
authors to help us through.
We
can still write with a heavy heart. One of the hardest things I ever did was
write the obituary of a dear friend and colleague. It turned out to be one of the best pieces
I’ve ever written. Now, we may not be
able to write light and funny romances through tragedy and hardship, but we can
still at least be writing something—using it to express our feelings, helping
us cope and heal.
Because we are writers. And what writers do is write. And the more we write, the more it becomes a
part of us. And the more it becomes a part
of us, the easier it will be to sit down and work. Just like the athlete going out for her daily
jog, our day isn’t complete without a few laps on the keyboard.
Then, we will grow so fond of
the view at the summit that we’ll do all we can to reach it—even when there
aren’t any agents or publishers at the top waving contracts.
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Rose Fisk was editor of the award-winning Lewisboro
Ledger before turning in board meetings and budget sessions for cocktail
parties and gallery openings when she became social editor for the larger
circulation Ridgefield Press and Wilton Bulletin in bucolic
upscale