Musings on the writing model: Fear of commitment

My wonderful writing professor, without whose advice I would have made far less progress on my dissertation, cautions me not to binge-write. She argues for a writing model in which I schedule a writing session every day, and protect that writing session as an important appointment. At the end of each writing session, I am to plan the next writing session. None of these planned writing sessions should last more than a couple of hours. If the day’s schedule allows, I could schedule multiple sessions with breaks between them.

I’m sure this is a marvelous model and that those who follow it are very productive writers. I certainly have no credibility to argue against it, as I am a terribly unproductive writer. I confess I have never followed this model, so can produce no evidence that the model doesn’t work.

When my professor first told me about this approach to writing, I completely agreed with it and decided to do exactly what she said. Excited about my new plan, I dutifully scheduled, or at least intended to schedule, my next few days of writing sessions. Unfortunately, my good intentions did not suffice to overcome my natural selfishness and tendency toward laziness, and I did not follow through on my commitments. The primary problem was not so much that I did not protect my writing appointments, but rather that I did not make the appointments at all.

When I look deep inside myself and examine my character, I find that among many flaws resides a strong sense of honor and honesty, and that I place a high value upon the keeping of promises. On the surface, this sounds like a good thing, and in some ways it is. Unfortunately, it is mixed with a large amount of pride, and too often I concern myself more with the keeping of a promise than about whatever or whoever caused me to make the promise in the first place. In other words, I sometimes keep promises with my hands but not my heart.

I realize I am explaining this very badly…..and what does this have to do with my writing? The problem is that I much prefer to be a promise-keeper than a promise-breaker. I do not enjoy the feeling of shame that comes with failing to keep a commitment. Therefore I tend to only make commitments I can keep without too much trouble. So instead of making an actual writing appointment, complete with start and end time, and either keeping or breaking it, I have attempted to accomplish the same thing by trying to summon up warm feelings and enthusiasm toward writing, and a general sense of dedication toward making progress.

Is it possible to finish my dissertation or become a productive writer with this approach? Will I grow up, change my ways and actually schedule, on paper, with an exact start time, my daily writing sessions? Will I learn that the most important commitments are those that require pain to keep? Will I be willing to set high standards, and accept the risk that I may fail to meet them?

I simply do not know. I am not sure whether scheduling my writing appointments would improve the writing rhythm I seem to have recently developed, or disrupt it. In the words of Gimli the dwarf, “Sworn word may strengthen quaking heart.” The wisdom of Elrond responded, “Or break it.” So, I will follow Elrond’s advice and go on my journey with a good heart, not looking too far ahead and trusting that a blessing rests upon my endeavors. Surely I will muddle through somehow.

The original title of this post was “What is the Optimal Proportion of Binge Writing?” I planned to argue that my professor’s writing model could be improved by supplementing the daily writing sessions with regular binge-writing sessions, in which I write nearly all day, or all night, or both, or maybe even for most of a weekend. But I have discovered that once I start writing about something, it takes on a life of its own and wanders off to unexpected places, and sometimes it is simply impossible to regain control. Maybe that’s okay—according to my brother Dave Mows Grass, good blog posts are supposed take a sound point and turn it into a rambling screed. That has certainly happened here. Since this weekend is scheduled (well, if not scheduled, at least intended) to be a weekend of binge writing, then maybe next week I will be better equipped to either defend or denounce the addition of binge writing to the productive writing model.