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 < back to articles The
Value of Incremental Writing
I recently had to replace my entire driveway, which was about 20 years old. It had been gradually broken up by the roots of a couple of pine trees and those of a magnolia. The four-inch thick slab of concrete was no match for the tiny annual added stress of a bunch of roots getting incrementally larger. Tara Gray's wonderful workshops advocate setting aside 30 minutes each day to write. At first hearing it sounds ridiculous: I have to get my computer booted up, file opened, self reminded about where I was yesterday in the writing project, inside of 10 minutes, and nothing can be accomplished in the remaining 20 minutes. But, those who practice her methods are surprised to find that in that 20 minutes, perhaps a page can be written. (I'm timing this essay, just to be able to report.) I look in the mirror each morning at (graying) hair that is incrementally longer than the day before. I can't immediately see any change. But a week or two or three from now, I look shaggy and unkempt. Something has happened incrementally. Incremental change is around us everywhere. It is a law of nature: things will change, although in such small increments that we are unlikely to notice. Consider the evolution versus intelligent design controversy: ID proponents frequently point to the fact that we are not aware of any evolutionary modification of species as evidence that there isn't any. Evolutionists take a longer view: what isn't immediately evident to experience nonetheless, in their "view" happens incrementally but with significant results over sufficiently long periods of time. Tiny changes make species happen. One of my favorite writers, Isaac Asimov, wrote several hundred books. Reportedly, he had four typewriters set at right angles to each other. He would write for an hour or two on one project on one typewriter, then rotate 90 degrees and write another hour or two on another project, then repeat the pattern twice more. Result: four or more books a year! Incremental writing is a technique that many successful writers find very useful. Making a commitment to a set length of writing each day produces predictable but nonetheless astonishing results. Suppose you write but 250 words in one 30-minute period each day for 365 days. That is a 365-page manuscript! Extend it to an hour or two and you have 730 to 1460 pages. To be sure, they probably won't be final draft, but they will be drafted, on paper, in the .doc file, and out of the head. I have now been writing on this essay 20 minutes. I need to stop and get a hair cut; I'm looking unkempt. |
