CHANNELING POPEYE

6/19/2013

Here’s the thing. I’ve been trying to be something I’m not, and it hasn’t worked out very well for me. If you’ve been following along week to week as I report on my writing goals, you know that my results have been mixed.

Hit. Miss. Hit. Miss. Hit. Miss.

I’ve been attempting to be a more steady-on writer. Someone who has a regular writing routine. Someone who writes every day. Even someone who writes in the <gasp> morning.

I thought that if I just did this, I would finally finish the never-ending manuscript. And I would be a better person.
This is easy to believe, given the vast number of stories and adages about the virtues of persistence and good habits
and early risers.

But the fact is, I’m not a slow-and-steady kind of person. I’m inclined to balk and buck at any routine. I don't take daily vitamins because I instinctively rebel against the regularity of this requirement.

And no one has ever mistaken me for a morning person.

The way I’ve always worked best is as a “binge-er.” I’m an all-or-nothing sorta person. When I’m “all in” I can accomplish amazing things. I do my all-time best writing when I take a week and completely immerse myself in my story. No emails or phone calls. No chores, errands or obligations. Just writing. A writing binge.

Granted I can’t arrange my life so that I can binge-write every day. If I did, I wouldn’t have any life other than writing. But most weeks I can find a way to binge-write for at least a chunk of one day, if not two or three days. So why not do that?

Is binge-writing really so wrong? Is there anything inherently bad about excess? Does one have to have a daily routine to be successful or virtuous or productive? Do I have to be slow-and-steady to win the writing race? Is it really necessary to get up at what my kids call “the butt-crack of dawn” to be healthy, wealthy and wise?

Trying to get up early in the morning and write a little bit every day hasn’t served me very well.

So despite cultural programming (and despite being married to a dyed-in-the-wool morning person who sincerely believes early birds are the only ones who deserve worms), I’m embracing my binge-writing, even when that means I fall back on my <gasp> night owl tendencies.

I’ve decided to channel Popeye: I yam what I yam.

I yam a binge-writer.

A binge-writer with a tendency to be a night owl.

And while I haven’t yet put the final seal on my work-in-progress,
I did make progress, and I did meet my most recent writing goals.

For the coming week, my plan is to binge. Binge-write, that is. I’m personally going to try not to let the binging spill over into eating or shopping or gambling. But for those of you playing the home-game, what happens in binge-land stays in binge-land, just so long as no one hurts any ducks.

Please do not construe this as medical, legal, or financial advice.

P.S.
I happen to LOVE canned spinach.
For years I've eaten it cold, straight from the can.
True story.

P.P.S.
If this coffee shop really exists, I want to go!
Are there any other night owls who want to meet me here
for a cuppa Joe around 1am?

9 Comments

Julia

6/19/2013 10:32:30 pm

HOLY COW! I am TOTALLY with you on this!! I too actively scorn routines and I feel exactly the same about vitamins or anything else that is required to be done daily. I just don't get it. It simply doesn't compute in my brain. And I too was trying to be a good and proper writer but now that you mention it, I've never been a good and proper anything. I mean, I eat with a fork when necessary and I know what all of the silverware is for on those rare occasions I must pretend to be an adult but I only wear shoes when legally required to do so. And those stilettos everyone always swoons over? I'd die if I even attempted to try them on, much less be so foolish as to try and walk in them. And 'Sitting Shoes?" I mean, what the heck? Do you wear your sneakers to walk in and then change them at the table? I so totally don't get the concept. I thought table cloths were to hide the fact that you had taken Off your shoes as soon as you got to the table.

But, back to writing. I too proclaim and accept that I am a Binge Writer. When I go down the rabbit hole that is my creative process, I like to settle in and wallow until my coffee cup runs dry and even then, if I don't make eye contact with anyone other than puppy boy, I can go straight back into it. I LOVE that feeling! And I too have been denying myself what makes writing fun for me in the first place because I read somewhere that I should EVEN THOUGH I have banned 'shoulds' in almost every other area of my life because I learned long ago they don't work for me. Sigh.

Thank you Chris for giving me permission to be me. Barefoot Binge Writers Unite! But you're on your own for that cold canned spinach thing. Yuck.

Fleur Bradley link

6/19/2013 11:13:48 pm

I've done some of my best writing binge-style :-) It's the best way to stay in the story, I think. Editing works great that way too.

And Popeye rules.

Mardra link

6/20/2013 02:16:55 am

THANK YOU for validating this, For.The.Love.Of.God.
I feel so Guilty for not being successful at writing the way so many greats write. Argh.
SO - let's do this thing - I hope to allow myself as many binge spurts and back downs as necessary in the month of July. We have books to write dammit. However they may come.

Becky Clark link

6/20/2013 11:57:04 am

I feel your pain. Really I do. Okay, I'm lying ... I have no idea what you're talking about. Writing is a muscle we need to use every day.

Would you decide one morning, er, afternoon, to run a marathon? No, you'd run a few miles every day in preparation. Would you wake up on Christmas morning and decide to do all the gift-buying, decorating, and cookie baking before noon? No, you'd divide and conquer that task over several weeks. Would you head off to college before spending time in k-gar thru 12th grade? Nope.

Then why would you try to write a novel in difficult-to-find-and-usually-nonexistent chunky bursts of time??

You referred to your baby — and I quote — as your "never-ending manuscript." Hmm. Would that be it over there next to your running shoes, your diploma, and your Christmas tree?

I love you with the white-hot intensity of 10,000 suns, my friend, but I call bullsh**. If bingeing is the way you've always worked best, then why would you even try to change? Why would your ms drape around your neck like a big typed albatross? Why would this even be on your mind?

There are as many ways to write as there are writers. But if something isn't working for you, then you need to make the decision to change. And if it is working for you, then quit worrying about your process and get BUSY with it!

You're strong to the finich cuz you eats yer spinach. (And you yam a perfectly fine person no matter how you write.) *smooch*

Chris Mandeville link

6/20/2013 01:53:59 pm

Actually, I prefer to do almost everything in binge-style. I do bake 8 dozen cookies in one stretch rather than over the course of days. I do NOT exercise every day and never have (and if I were to have the insane notion that I might want to run a marathon, I'd probably binge-train, too). I do all my shopping in marathon-like binges even when shopping for houses (I once fired a realtor because he wanted to show me 4 houses a day when my style is to see 24). And I was SO ready for college after preschool. It really pissed me off that I had to spend 13 years doing all those other grades first.

So I reject the notion that slow-and-steady is the right way to be, a superior way to be, or the way I should be. But I tried it for writing because so many others find that it works for them. Just like I've tried once or twice to be a morning person and a regular exerciser. Even if I didn't believe that doing so would inherently make me a better person (despite what you morning-exericise-routine-regular flosser-kinda-people claim) I did think it was worth seeing if there was merit. I thought there was a chance it would work better for me than my "natural" way of doing things. But it didn't. I'll wager I'll try it again one day, but I'm throwing in the towel on this attempt.

The reason this manuscript is never-ending is complicated. I grant that some of it has to do with my habits and productivity, but an equal measure is owed to changes to the story I can now make due to my growth as a writer. Additionally there's the whole other issue of my setting non-writing priorities above my writing. But that's a whole 'nother can of spinach.

I adore you, too, Becky, but not with the white-hot intensity of 10,000 suns. Because, you see, I am not a morning person. I love you as much as there are stars in the night sky. Or as my kids used to say before they became teenagers, I love you more than puppies and kittens. Thank you for your comments, even if you did call bull*** on me. Don't worry, I'll get you back, you morning-person, routine-excerciser-writer (I know you do it at the same time) and regular flosser person. Don't deny it, I know you floss.

Becky

6/20/2013 11:44:21 pm

Dang it. You caught me flossing.

First, let me say that I totally get the never-ending ms. I have a bunch of my own.

Second, I wasn't really calling bullsh** on you, more on your theory: "the notion that slow-and-steady is the right way to be, a superior way to be, or the way I should be."

Just because something works for others doesn't make it right for you. It just surprised me that professing how much binge-ing works in so many other aspects of your life, you would think that the OPPOSITE would work in your writing life. As my mother would say, "If everyone jumped off a cliff would you do that too?"

Now, about these things you reference ... "stars"? At "nighttime"? I'll have to try and see them. Better set my timer. Right after I floss.

Jennifer Lovett Herbranson link

6/20/2013 12:44:46 pm

I am soooo right there with you! I'm a binge writer who can crank out some great things late at night or maybe sometimes in the morning. I'd love to be an 8-hour-a-day writer like Nora Roberts but I've accepted that I'm just not. But I do try very hard to write a little every day. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Hang in there! You're not alone!

Kristi Lloyd

6/20/2013 11:42:30 pm

I like routines. But I hate mornings! I am SUCH a night owl. Sure, right after becoming a mom, I took my sleep whenever I could get it. But now that my kids are a bit older and I'm writing, night time is my favorite time again.

Night Owl Mandeville link

6/21/2013 05:05:01 am

Night owls rule. Not that there's anything wrong with morning people. Or regular flossers.

CHANNELING POPEYE

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