At the old Nick and Gus’s restaurant in Oakland, California, there was a sign you could read as you waited in line to place your order.
“This ain’t Burger King. You don’t get it your way here. You get it my way or you don’t get the son of a bitch.”
The good news is that when you’re writing a book you can do it any way you choose. Stand on your head and write on your shirt between 10 and 4 on days ending in “y” if that works. You get it your way.
The bad news is that you won’t automatically know the best way for you to write. Last night I chatted with a friend who is writing a book while running a business, and taking care of her kids.
Find the working pattern that’s best for you
She’s been trying to write in the spaces in her schedule, but she’s not happy with the results. So she’s shifting her book writing to large blocks of time on the weekend. I told her I thought that would work better.
The fact is that it may or may not. The only way she’ll find out is to try it. That’s true for any writer.
Start by playing the odds
Most of the writers I’ve met who did their work in the cracks in their day did it because they had to. Most writers get their best results writing in blocks of uninterrupted time of sixty to ninety minutes in a place where they won’t be interrupted.
If you can, try something like that. If you’re not getting the results you want, though, you have to experiment.
Experiment to find what works best for you
Try different ways until you find one that works for you. From time to time, try something different, just to see if it might be even better.