Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Writing with discipline

I just went to hear William F. Buckley give a talk at my local Barnes and Noble's on his most recent spy novel, which I can't say I have read. Blackforth's something or other. Ah, here it is, Last Call for Blackford Oakes.

Some nice irony in the passages he selected.

The thing that impressed me the most: his writing schedule for his novels. He always writes them - the first draft - during 6 weeks in Switzerland. He spends the morning on his regular business, takes lunch and skiis for an hour and a half, and then devotes his afternoon to his novel writing. 1500 words a day on the novel.

Can I just say, Wow!

I'm inspired. He mentioned that Nabokov, a friend of his, always wrote 170 words a day and Georges Simenon considered himself a slacker if he ever spent more than 12 days on a novel. Which is how he wrote several hundred in his life time.

From tomorrow on, I'm working harder.

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