Tayari's Blog: The Novel as Nightcap
Posted by TayariJones on May 1, 2007 07:01 AM
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This year, I will write my second novel. I’ve been thinking about 
writing this book for a while now. I began it once before and somehow lost steam. I’m a very goal-oriented person and I had a detailed outline of how the novel would unfold and develop, a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the story. After writing a few of the chapters, I realized that nothing in my pages excited me anymore; I loved the premise and the hearts of the characters, but the story lacked a fundamental sense of passion. I realized that I had regimented the life out of the story.
I had the goal of writing three pages a day, six days a week. I marked page goals in my daily planner. If I missed a day, I promised myself that I would make up those pages on the weekend, but that never happened. The result of this tough love approach was that I felt like an uncommitted slacker—a failure--when I couldn’t squeeze in my self-imposed, daily page quota. Never mind the fact that I’d published a novel, a collection of poems, completed my law degree and my MFA, moved to New York City, started a tenure-track teaching position, am knee-deep in a challenging poetry collection, and am about to attend the college graduations of two of my four children—I’d missed the mark, had the tangible proof of my neglect in my planner, and carried the weight of this guilt with me daily.
What I have learned is that I need to practice being kind to myself and my work. Demanding unrealistic requirements of my writing is certainly not being kind to me; it’s cruel and it needs to be unusual. Nowadays, I work on my novel daily but I write a single page and only a page. My novel page is my daily nightcap: a tiny way of rewarding myself for a day well-lived, a time to convene with characters that I like and enjoy visiting. I don’t overstay my welcome; I don’t put crazy demands on them anymore or make them do anything they don’t want to do. My novel page has become an adventure and I’m surprised and delighted daily. And so what if it takes me an entire year to finish this draft? If I didn’t write a page a day, it would take me longer. I’m not in a hurry: it is the process of writing this novel that is joy to me now, not the promise (or the threat) of publication.
Jacqueline Jones LaMon
22 April 2007
Brooklyn, NY
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There are 4 comments on "The Novel as Nightcap". If you'd like to leave a comment, click here to jump down to the comments entry form.
Comment #1, by Lafreya ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.tayarijones.com/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
This made me feel so much better about writing my next novel. Thank you so much
May 1, 2007 11:08 AM
Comment #2, by Lester Spence
i appreciate these comments a great deal. i wonder though how ms. lamon thinks about the idea of paying one's self first?
May 1, 2007 07:02 PM
Comment #3, by Judy
My goodness. Your words were a Godsend! Thanks so much for sharing. I feel my guilt melting away. One page a day. That I can do -- even with this stack of student papers awaiting me. And thank you, Tayari, for asking Ms LaMon to share this.
May 2, 2007 03:54 PM
Comment #4, by Trenee
Ms. LaMon, your comments remind me of something Zadie Smith (author of White Teeth) said in an interview. The words stay on my mind and maybe they'll give you something to think about:
Where and when do you do your writing? Any small room with no natural light will do. As for when, I have no particular schedules... afternoons are best, but I'm too lethargic for any real regime. When I'm in the flow of something I can do a regular 9 to 5; when I don't know where I'm going with an idea, I'm lucky if I do two hours of productive work. There is nothing more off-putting to a would-be novelist to hear about how so-and-so wakes up at four in the a.m, walks the dog, drinks three liters of black coffee and then writes 3,000 words a day, or that some other asshole only works half an hour every two weeks, does fifty press-ups and stands on his head before and after the "creative moment." I remember reading that kind of stuff in profiles like this and becoming convinced everything I was doing was wrong. What's the American phrase? If it ain't broke...
http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/0700/smith/interview.html
In other words, we have to find what works best for ourselves. Then we need a reminder not to beat up ourselves when what we though would work...well, just doesn't work out. Good luck with your writing!
May 3, 2007 03:38 PM