In addition to maintaining a popular blog, teaching aerobics, and pulling off freelance writing gigs, Joel Derfner somehow managed to write two books over the last four years.Today, we find out how he did it...
This is the fourth installment of of my interview with Joel Derfner, part of my deceptively simple feature: Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a serialized set of weekly interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing.
Jason Boog:
How do you find time and energy to write with all your other work? What's your advice for fledgling writers trying to balance life and work?
Joel Derfner:
For me the most important thing has been finding day jobs that have as little to do with writing as possible. If I've spent my day teaching aerobics and musical theater composition, then I can sit down at the computer when I get home and feel excited to write rather than burned out...
I think sitting in an office and reading manuscripts all day, for example, would probably make it really hard to continue working on a manuscript after work, even if the manuscript were my own.
I've been lucky enough to cobble together a living from freelance and part-time jobs, which leaves me more time to write than a 9-to-5 job would, but I also find as many opportunities as I can to write. It's a rare subway ride that I don't have my laptop out.
When I don't feel like writing, I basically scare myself into it. I tell myself, 'Okay, if you write, then you'll end up with a book. And if you don't write, then you'll end up with no book and everyone will hate you and, worse, be disappointed in you.' And that possibility frightens me so much that I feel guilty doing anything but writing.
The hardest situation for me comes when I'm writing something bad. Every phrase is torture, because I know that it's boring and sucky, and glaciers move faster than the second hand on my watch. I write until I can't bear it anymore and then I turn on Law & Order and eat chocolate and go to sleep.
Usually what happens is that within a few days I realize either that I can make it good by cutting it in half or that it's just not an interesting moment and I should just skip it entirely. I think I'm going to have to write a how-to book some day called Skip the Boring Parts.
But sometimes you have to write them before you realize you can skip them. And in those cases, there's no better feeling than pressing open apple-X and watching crap disappear.
The hardest situation for me comes when I'm writing something bad. Every phrase is torture, because I know that it's boring and sucky, and glaciers move faster than the second hand on my watch. I write until I can't bear it anymore and then I turn on Law & Order and eat chocolate and go to sleep.
Usually what happens is that within a few days I realize either that I can make it good by cutting it in half or that it's just not an interesting moment and I should just skip it entirely. I think I'm going to have to write a how-to book some day called Skip the Boring Parts.
But sometimes you have to write them before you realize you can skip them. And in those cases, there's no better feeling than pressing open apple-X and watching crap disappear.
That makes a lot of sense to me. I don't see how people who write for columns or articles as a day job have enough mental dedication to come home and write later on. If I spent the whole day having to be on my p's and q's about how I conveyed myself, I would be entirely spent when it came to more personal fare.
Posted by: mojo shivers | July 28, 2006 3:23 AM | Permalink to Comment