Writing When You Have No Time to Write
Lessons from a struggling spy novelist.
The Wall Street Journal recently ran a splendid profile of the spy novelist Mick Herron, who toiled in obscurity for years before a series of breaks turned him into one of the best-selling writers in America and the U.K.
I’m a sucker for writer’s stories, but I was especially struck by one passage about Herron’s early career as a writer. Back in those days, he was working as an editor at the Employment Law Brief (scintillating!) in the U.K.:
He was commuting every day from Oxford to London. He came to work early so he could leave early. When he got home around 6 p.m., he had the energy to write for an hour. By aiming for 350 words a night, he pumped out five well-reviewed detective novels. But they “hadn’t set the world alight,” as he puts it, and they weren’t nearly successful enough for him to write full time. So he kept commuting.
Herron’s account offers an inspiring example of someone who had almost no time for his long-term writing projects. He had a full-time job, plus a long commute, in work that had nothing to do with what he really wanted to be writing.
At that point, most writers would either give up, or they would maybe find an occasional weekend to write a couple pages. Either way, they wouldn’t make steady progress.
Herron, clearly with the “fire in his bones,” chose incremental daily progress instead. Between 6 and 7 pm each day, he would write 350 words, or about a page and a half. Assuming books of about 125,000 words each, at this pace he must have been writing a book about every year or so.
This is yet another example of how consistently writing, even in small blocks of time, can add up to major progress when counted in years. For example, if you wrote 350 words a day for 300 days, you would have a 105,000 word manuscript - a standard length for dissertations and academic books.
I know many doctoral students and other writers who read my newsletter have precious little time to write, given their work and family commitments. But my constant encouragement and reminder is that if you are committed to a dissertation or book project, you’re simply going to have to carve out consistent time to write.
Maybe you can’t do 350 words a day from 6 to 7 pm, like Mick Herron did. But can you do 1000 words a week? 350 words a week? Even the smallest word count is infinitely better than just writing “when you can.”
If you simply won’t commit to a daily or weekly goal, you will probably get the all-too-common result for many early-career writers: endless procrastination. Almost every writer is tempted to work on “urgent” matters before attending to your long-term project. A word count goal is the best way I know how to hold yourself accountable to consistent writing progress.
The rollout for Christian History: From the Reformation to the Present has gone so well! Thanks to all those who have bought the book, requested an instructor’s copy, and shared about it on social media. If you haven’t seen it, Midwestern Seminary produced an outstanding promo video about the book.