Grimsley on Writing

Mark Grimsley has an interesting post on his blog today about writing. Like me, Mark has been writing in some form or another for nearly his entire life. Like me, it’s something that he struggles with, constantly trying to improve his skills. In his post, Mark mentions a book titled Professors as Writers, which is intended to help academics improve their writing skills. What makes this pertinent to me is that the book seems to provide a recipe for making the most effective and most productive use of small blocks of time.

Mark’s days are filled with teaching, grading papers, meeting/counseling students and advisees, tending to his bureaucratic/administrative duties at the university, and shoehorning in time to do research. Consequently, he finds himself with only small blocks of time for writing.

My days are not much different. My days are spent meeting with clients, going to court, doing depositions, client development, administrative duties, tending to Ironclad’s needs, and more other distractions than I could hope to describe here. In short, my days are filled, often too filled. I’ve had to learn to do just what Mark’s talking about–being extremely efficient in my use of time. When it’s time to write, I try to set aside two hour blocks for doing so. I try to write three nights a week (it doesn’t matter which three, so long as I get three). Susan knows that when I’m in writing mode, it’s basically total immersion, that I get so focused and intent on what I’m doing that I’m barely conscious of what’s going on around me.

With my short attention span, that’s how it has to be. Otherwise, I get distracted, and if I get distracted, I’m done. It’s really that simple. To her everlasting credit, Susan knows and understands that about me, and she is usually willing to do what it takes to accommodate that, even if it means that I’m not much help with things like laundry or letting the dogs out. The trade-off, of course, is that when I’m not writing, I have to do what I can to help with these things, and I do so whenever possible.

People often ask how I’m able to be as prolific as I am with the incredibly hectic/insane schedule that I keep. It’s because I am able to completely immerse myself in my writing work several nights per week, and if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t come close to finishing anything. My ability to do so is entirely dependent upon my terribly understanding and patient wife, without whom none of this would be possible.