Vincent Zandri's Blog - Posts Tagged "as-catch-can"
Biting the Nail: The Discipline of Writing
Biting the Nail: The Discipline of Writing
By Vincent Zandri
“Where do you get your discipline?”
That’s the question I’m asked most frequently about my solitary writing life. Most people who work according the programmed schedule of job and career find it inconceivable that a person can actually roll out of bed, face a blank page, and begin to make words. Yet, as writers, that’s what we do. We create and in order to create we have to have discipline. Discipline to work alone, according to our own rules, according to our own high standards, according to our own priorities and curiosities.
Acquiring discipline isn’t so hard when you are passionate about your work—when you have a desire not only to write well, but to do it better than anyone has done it before. At the same time you have to develop a skin of armor in order to feed the obsession. The first most important lesson of the disciplined writing life is learning that you’re not always going to be successful. Most of the time you will fail and must face the resulting rejection head on. That’s the most difficult thing about discipline: carrying on with your work unabated, even in the face of rejection.
So where does my discipline come from?
As clichéd as it sounds, I can only tell you that it comes from deep inside. It’s not something I have to work up, so much as it’s something I have to feed on a daily basis. Discipline means waking up early every day, day in and day out, and writing. It’s writing everyday in isolation no matter what’s happening in my life. Be it sick kids, angry spouses, insolvent bank accounts, a broken toilet, a terrorist attack… I write no matter what. Hemingway called this sometimes impossible but necessary process, “biting the nail.” And anyone who has the discipline to write every day no matter what, understands what biting the nail is all about. Writing, like the discipline it requires, can be an awfully painful process.
Back in 1992, I wrote in my published essay, A Literary Life, “In the morning, weariness begins with darkness. It surrounds me inside my kitchen like a weighted shroud, cumbersome and black. It continues as my fingertips search and locate a light switch next to the telephone, above my son’s hi-chair. White light stings my eyes when I flip it up. There is a clock above the sink…I interpret a big hand and little hand that have not yet made 6:00AM.”
Those were the days when I wrote in the mornings, worked a fulltime job and received rejections everyday. But still, I crawled out of bed and wrote. I guess all these years later, I can truthfully say, discipline is what I had in the place of sleep, in the place of comfort, in the place of security and success. Discipline was and remains the bedfellow I seek when I am at my most lonely.
Eventually the discipline would reap its rewards.
In the 12 years since I’ve earned my MFA from Vermont College, I’ve published three novels, with one on the way this winter. I’ve been translated into numerous languages. I’ve published almost two dozen short stories, countless articles, essays and blogs. I’ve traveled “on assignment” to China, Turkey, Greece, Italy, France, Spain, Africa and more. Along the way I’ve met wonderful people, seen wonderful things, witnessed atrocities, unspeakable disease, hunger and corruption. I’ve written about much of it. Some of it, I’ve simply stored away in my brain for some future story or novel down the road.
For all its rewards, discipline demands stiff payment.
Because of my priorities, I’ve failed at two marriages and many more relationships. I’ve lost friends and lost the faith and trust of family members who have come to think of me as unreliable or flaky at best. Because after all, I tend to use a holiday like Christmas as a time to work, and when family events like birthdays come up, I might be traveling or locked up in my studio with my significant other…Well, you know her name. It starts with a D.
I have managed however, to find a way to balance time with my kids. Not that it’s always been easy. Children are a distraction, no bones about it. But they are also fuel for your discipline. I’m not entirely certain that I could have achieved any kind of success without them. Children open up emotional vaults that would otherwise remain sealed shut. You need to expose the contents of these vaults in your prose.
My writing simply wouldn’t be the same without kids. Now that they’re almost grown up, I still keep them as close as possible without smothering them. When it comes to my children, my philosophy has always been, hug them, tell them you love them, and make them laugh once a day. You’d be surprised how well this works. Also, don’t be afraid to tell them the truth. They know when you’re lying. If you can’t spend time with them because you have to feed the discipline, be honest about it. They will appreciate you for it and come to respect you.
Case and point: it’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon and I’m writing this article. My children are home, just outside the closed door of my studio, where I can hear them engaged in some sort of friendly argument. I’m not doing anything with them per se. But I’m here with them, for them.
This month alone I will write and published 36 short architecture and construction articles, three major blogs, present a revised version of The Concrete Pearl (my fifth novel) to my agent, write one or two features, engage in pre-publicity for Moonlight Falls, and maybe, if there’s time, pen a new piece for my personal blog. In between all this, I’ll juggle time with the kids, time for exercise, time to tip some beers with friends, time for a few road trips, time to be by myself and read. Have I mentioned the discipline required to read books?
One word of warning, the discipline, no matter how beautiful a bedfellow, does not always respond lovingly. Even after you’ve scored a major book contract or two. During my second marriage, I suffered through a writer’s block that lasted five long years, a period during which I published not a single word. The block just happened to coincide with my oldest son’s nervous breakdown and the onset of severe depression (see “Breakdown,” http://www.blnz.com/news/2008/11/12/B...). At that time, as I came close to going broke (after receiving a mid-six figure advance for As Catch Can), I never once stopped working, never once veered from the discipline of waking up every morning and trying to write. “Trying” being the key word here.
Looking back on those difficult years, I realize I wasn’t writing so much as I was just typing, but the process helped me cope with some very difficult and serious issues in my life. If nothing else, the discipline to write can be a mighty powerful therapy.
Eventually the damn breaks, as it did in my case, and I made a return to good writing and publishing. I’m not making millions by any means, but I make a decent living as a freelance journalist and novelist, and that’s all anyone can honestly ask for.
The late great Norman Mailer also understood about the financial ups and downs of being a full-time writer. But more importantly, he understood about the discipline of biting the nail. He wrote 2,500 new words a day right up until the end when his kidneys failed him. It wasn’t the disciple or the talent or the mind that gave out, it was the 84 year old body. I’m told he died with a smile on his face. Not the kind of smile that accompanies peace of mind, sedated painlessness, or “going to the bright light.” But the kind of smile that only a disciplined writer can wear; the sly grin that means you’re about to embark on a brand new adventure, and that you can’t wait to write about it.
By Vincent Zandri
“Where do you get your discipline?”
That’s the question I’m asked most frequently about my solitary writing life. Most people who work according the programmed schedule of job and career find it inconceivable that a person can actually roll out of bed, face a blank page, and begin to make words. Yet, as writers, that’s what we do. We create and in order to create we have to have discipline. Discipline to work alone, according to our own rules, according to our own high standards, according to our own priorities and curiosities.
Acquiring discipline isn’t so hard when you are passionate about your work—when you have a desire not only to write well, but to do it better than anyone has done it before. At the same time you have to develop a skin of armor in order to feed the obsession. The first most important lesson of the disciplined writing life is learning that you’re not always going to be successful. Most of the time you will fail and must face the resulting rejection head on. That’s the most difficult thing about discipline: carrying on with your work unabated, even in the face of rejection.
So where does my discipline come from?
As clichéd as it sounds, I can only tell you that it comes from deep inside. It’s not something I have to work up, so much as it’s something I have to feed on a daily basis. Discipline means waking up early every day, day in and day out, and writing. It’s writing everyday in isolation no matter what’s happening in my life. Be it sick kids, angry spouses, insolvent bank accounts, a broken toilet, a terrorist attack… I write no matter what. Hemingway called this sometimes impossible but necessary process, “biting the nail.” And anyone who has the discipline to write every day no matter what, understands what biting the nail is all about. Writing, like the discipline it requires, can be an awfully painful process.
Back in 1992, I wrote in my published essay, A Literary Life, “In the morning, weariness begins with darkness. It surrounds me inside my kitchen like a weighted shroud, cumbersome and black. It continues as my fingertips search and locate a light switch next to the telephone, above my son’s hi-chair. White light stings my eyes when I flip it up. There is a clock above the sink…I interpret a big hand and little hand that have not yet made 6:00AM.”
Those were the days when I wrote in the mornings, worked a fulltime job and received rejections everyday. But still, I crawled out of bed and wrote. I guess all these years later, I can truthfully say, discipline is what I had in the place of sleep, in the place of comfort, in the place of security and success. Discipline was and remains the bedfellow I seek when I am at my most lonely.
Eventually the discipline would reap its rewards.
In the 12 years since I’ve earned my MFA from Vermont College, I’ve published three novels, with one on the way this winter. I’ve been translated into numerous languages. I’ve published almost two dozen short stories, countless articles, essays and blogs. I’ve traveled “on assignment” to China, Turkey, Greece, Italy, France, Spain, Africa and more. Along the way I’ve met wonderful people, seen wonderful things, witnessed atrocities, unspeakable disease, hunger and corruption. I’ve written about much of it. Some of it, I’ve simply stored away in my brain for some future story or novel down the road.
For all its rewards, discipline demands stiff payment.
Because of my priorities, I’ve failed at two marriages and many more relationships. I’ve lost friends and lost the faith and trust of family members who have come to think of me as unreliable or flaky at best. Because after all, I tend to use a holiday like Christmas as a time to work, and when family events like birthdays come up, I might be traveling or locked up in my studio with my significant other…Well, you know her name. It starts with a D.
I have managed however, to find a way to balance time with my kids. Not that it’s always been easy. Children are a distraction, no bones about it. But they are also fuel for your discipline. I’m not entirely certain that I could have achieved any kind of success without them. Children open up emotional vaults that would otherwise remain sealed shut. You need to expose the contents of these vaults in your prose.
My writing simply wouldn’t be the same without kids. Now that they’re almost grown up, I still keep them as close as possible without smothering them. When it comes to my children, my philosophy has always been, hug them, tell them you love them, and make them laugh once a day. You’d be surprised how well this works. Also, don’t be afraid to tell them the truth. They know when you’re lying. If you can’t spend time with them because you have to feed the discipline, be honest about it. They will appreciate you for it and come to respect you.
Case and point: it’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon and I’m writing this article. My children are home, just outside the closed door of my studio, where I can hear them engaged in some sort of friendly argument. I’m not doing anything with them per se. But I’m here with them, for them.
This month alone I will write and published 36 short architecture and construction articles, three major blogs, present a revised version of The Concrete Pearl (my fifth novel) to my agent, write one or two features, engage in pre-publicity for Moonlight Falls, and maybe, if there’s time, pen a new piece for my personal blog. In between all this, I’ll juggle time with the kids, time for exercise, time to tip some beers with friends, time for a few road trips, time to be by myself and read. Have I mentioned the discipline required to read books?
One word of warning, the discipline, no matter how beautiful a bedfellow, does not always respond lovingly. Even after you’ve scored a major book contract or two. During my second marriage, I suffered through a writer’s block that lasted five long years, a period during which I published not a single word. The block just happened to coincide with my oldest son’s nervous breakdown and the onset of severe depression (see “Breakdown,” http://www.blnz.com/news/2008/11/12/B...). At that time, as I came close to going broke (after receiving a mid-six figure advance for As Catch Can), I never once stopped working, never once veered from the discipline of waking up every morning and trying to write. “Trying” being the key word here.
Looking back on those difficult years, I realize I wasn’t writing so much as I was just typing, but the process helped me cope with some very difficult and serious issues in my life. If nothing else, the discipline to write can be a mighty powerful therapy.
Eventually the damn breaks, as it did in my case, and I made a return to good writing and publishing. I’m not making millions by any means, but I make a decent living as a freelance journalist and novelist, and that’s all anyone can honestly ask for.
The late great Norman Mailer also understood about the financial ups and downs of being a full-time writer. But more importantly, he understood about the discipline of biting the nail. He wrote 2,500 new words a day right up until the end when his kidneys failed him. It wasn’t the disciple or the talent or the mind that gave out, it was the 84 year old body. I’m told he died with a smile on his face. Not the kind of smile that accompanies peace of mind, sedated painlessness, or “going to the bright light.” But the kind of smile that only a disciplined writer can wear; the sly grin that means you’re about to embark on a brand new adventure, and that you can’t wait to write about it.
Southern City Mysteries Interview
This is from the latest interview I did this week with one of the hottest mystery/thriller blogs in the states:
http://southerncitymysteries.blogspot...
Moonlight Falls
http://southerncitymysteries.blogspot...
Moonlight Falls
An Exclusive First Look at "The Innocent!"
The long awaited resurrection of the critically acclaimed As Catch Can is now about to become a reality on Kindle and EBook thanks to StoneGate Ink (StoneHouse Ink)...Here's an exclusive look at an excerpt which also includes a new forward by Detroit Noir Critic and Author, Heath Lowrance!
Enjoy!!!!
http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
The Remains
Enjoy!!!!
http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
The Remains
Prophecies and Predictions re the Publishing Revolucion!!!
Lately I feel like I'm at war with the world's bookstores. Nothing could be further from the truth. While it's true I've been social networking and virtual "cyber" pushing the Kindle and EBook sales of my new bestsellers, The Remains and Moonlight Falls (and the forthcoming The Innocent), like a street-corner prostitute on crack, I haven't completely ignored the value and communal benefits of the traditional bookstore. After all, all my books are still published in paper and like any other author, there's no greater feeling than holding your own book in your hand.
However, bookstores if they are to last must face some serious facts, the major one being, if they don't adapt to the new indie publishing revolution, especially EBook/Kindle publishing, they will go out of business, or at the very least relegate their personalized service to the big box Target's of the world. That includes the littlest corner shop to the big B&N stores.
Get the rest of the scoop here from the Vincent Zandri Vox!!!:
http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
The Remains
However, bookstores if they are to last must face some serious facts, the major one being, if they don't adapt to the new indie publishing revolution, especially EBook/Kindle publishing, they will go out of business, or at the very least relegate their personalized service to the big box Target's of the world. That includes the littlest corner shop to the big B&N stores.
Get the rest of the scoop here from the Vincent Zandri Vox!!!:
http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
The Remains
Bestselling Thriller Master Jason McIntyre Speak Out on Suspense!
My great white north bro, Jason McIntyre, is a young thriller novelist who not only knows how to keep the thrill in thriller, he also writes some of the most beautiful sentences being published today.
Reminiscent of Michael Connelly on literary steroids, the dedicated Indy author has greedily occupied the number 1 Spot on the Smashwords Thriller Bestseller's List with his debut novel, On The Gathering Storm, since it was released this past summer. This is the story of a young, beautiful adventurer and photographer, Hannah Gerretty, who makes her way to a secluded island paradise to live the romantic bohemian life, only to find herself lost inside an impenetrable forest, and the target of the worst kind of evil. This is not the kind of story you start at ten o'clock at night. That is you want to get any sleep at all!
Get the scoop on suspense here at the Vincent Zandri Vox:
http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
The Remains
Reminiscent of Michael Connelly on literary steroids, the dedicated Indy author has greedily occupied the number 1 Spot on the Smashwords Thriller Bestseller's List with his debut novel, On The Gathering Storm, since it was released this past summer. This is the story of a young, beautiful adventurer and photographer, Hannah Gerretty, who makes her way to a secluded island paradise to live the romantic bohemian life, only to find herself lost inside an impenetrable forest, and the target of the worst kind of evil. This is not the kind of story you start at ten o'clock at night. That is you want to get any sleep at all!
Get the scoop on suspense here at the Vincent Zandri Vox:
http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
The Remains
Oh How Sweet It Is!!!!
It's been ten years since the publication of my first major thriller, As Catch Can. Back then it was called, The Innocent, but the publisher decided to change the title at the last minute since a sister publisher had an author with the same title, and the editor was very afraid the Bertlesman boys might leave a severed horse head in his bed one night if he were to put out a novel with the same title. So it was changed to As Catch Can....
Get the full story here at the "Vox:"
http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
The Innocent
Get the full story here at the "Vox:"
http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
The Innocent
What's the Strangest Thing About Me????
Find out in this great new interview on Roxie's Blog!!! It's the first regarding the new thriller, The Innocent!!!!
http://roxieh.wordpress.com/2010/10/0...
The Innocent
http://roxieh.wordpress.com/2010/10/0...
The Innocent
The Wrongly Accused!!!!
Have you ever been wrongly accused for something? Ever since I was a little kid,
I've been fascinated with the subject. Case and point: one Christmas eve my parents accused me of opening a gift before Christmas morning arrived. My dad was big stickler on that. No opening of gifts until after church on Christmas day. I recall both my parents flanking me and asking me in that accusatory tone, "Did you or did you not open that gift?" A boy of no more than 7 I stared at the black doctor's kit and I tried to recall: had I in fact torn away the paper and opened it? I most certainly did not I decided. And I proceeded to plead my case to my parents who weren't having any of it. They were convinced I'd done it and not my older sisters who could do no wrong. I was spanked and sent to my room.
Get the rest of the story here at the Vox:
http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
The Innocent
I've been fascinated with the subject. Case and point: one Christmas eve my parents accused me of opening a gift before Christmas morning arrived. My dad was big stickler on that. No opening of gifts until after church on Christmas day. I recall both my parents flanking me and asking me in that accusatory tone, "Did you or did you not open that gift?" A boy of no more than 7 I stared at the black doctor's kit and I tried to recall: had I in fact torn away the paper and opened it? I most certainly did not I decided. And I proceeded to plead my case to my parents who weren't having any of it. They were convinced I'd done it and not my older sisters who could do no wrong. I was spanked and sent to my room.
Get the rest of the story here at the Vox:
http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
The Innocent
Writing Advice for Newbies!!!
Lately, a lot of interviewers have been asking me to lend some advice to newbie writers, especially
young people just starting out. So I decided to offer some of that advice here on the Vox. For better or worse, here it is at the VOX.....
http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
The Innocent
The Remains
young people just starting out. So I decided to offer some of that advice here on the Vox. For better or worse, here it is at the VOX.....
http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
The Innocent
The Remains
The "Mysterious Writers" Interview
Here's some inside scoop on the Innocent and some other weird things about me at Mysterious Writers!!!!
http://mysteriouspeople.blogspot.com/...
The Innocent
http://mysteriouspeople.blogspot.com/...
The Innocent
