Creativity | Writing Tips
Two Pages a Day
Recipe for a good day’s writing
Are you one of those people who gets distracted by the thought of a lot of deadlines? If so, what does that mean for your writing? It could mean you tend to put an awful lot of pressure on yourself — wanting to spit out long articles in two minutes (when nobody does), meet deadlines before your work is ready, and make similar decisions that undercut your work.
When I first started playwriting and became a core writer at The Playwrights’ Center, I had a new baby and a whole lot of anxiety around getting any writing done. I worried aloud to the much more established playwright who mentored me at the center. His response?
“You’re worried about not being able to get a lot done?” he asked.
“Exactly,” I replied.
“Want to know what I would do?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“I would see how slowly I could write something. Drag it out.”
“WHAT?” I said.
“Make sure every word you’re writing is the one you want,” he continued. “Take the time you need to be sure you are happy with the story you’re telling. Obsess over the dialogue. The more you do that, the more you’ll get to like what you’re doing and the more comfortable you’ll be when you’re working on a play, book, whatever.”
The baby was crying. It was dinner time, and the fam was supposed to be at an event because of the husband’s job. My head was about to explode — but I couldn’t shake the feeling my mentor was right. Rushing around aimlessly has never worked for my creative life, and I’m betting it’s the same for you.
Would taking my time work better? You know it would, because that rose you’re trying to grow won’t do very well without some real TLC — to say nothing of the fact that the more you put into each sentence now, the less time you’ll have to spend on rewriting.
That doesn’t mean you ignore the baby and family. It means when you do have a half hour to yourself, DON’T panic. DON’T act like you’re on a plane and need to jump off, or you’re in a burning building. Well, maybe you are, but that burning isn’t in a house fire.
It’s in you. And the best way to put that fire out is to sit down calmly, with a glass of your favorite drink (which hopefully isn’t alcohol, but that’s another post). Stretch your legs, rub your neck, and think about the best way to start your story/sentence/play/musical/novel. Think of what you want to say when you’re starting a riveting story to a friend.
Ready, set, jump.
I had a friend and fellow author who once told me she would only write two pages a day because that’s all she had time for. She ended up writing one of the best plays I’d ever seen, and becoming a sought-after guest around the country, speaking, because many people had the same issues she was writing about.
I thought my friend’s idea about page numbers would be hers alone — but some months later, I met a famous author who said the same thing. She writes two pages a day, and everything over that tends to be less interesting or worth it.
So, on days when I’m especially pressed for time —
— When I have a big deadline —
— When I’m anxious about how I’m going to make something work and there’s a boss/audience/director waiting for it —
I say to myself, two pages a day. And time stretches out like the sky in front of me because I’m trying to figure out exactly what I want to say and how I want to say it.
One more writer I forgot to mention here is Flannery O’Connor, who is said to have written only two hours a day. I don’t know the number of pages she wrote, but I want to include her here because she too was in favor of limiting herself — rather than letting herself be limited by someone’s idea of the time one needs to spend on writing.
Sometimes (shh!) I write a little more than two pages, say three or four pages. Or five. Ten. Whatever. Those extra pages may not be perfect, but they give me an idea of where I want to go the next day, and they’re usually pages I write because I can’t stop at two.
I think of these page and time limits as tools we can use to sense our way into a story. That mainly happens only when we stop worrying about the deadline or needing to get in a huge number of pages (that won’t be any good anyway). It happens when we shove the anxiety back where it came from and think about readers — and what we want to share with them.
Two pages a day. Twelve paragraphs an hour. Who’s counting? I shouldn’t be — so if I do, shut me down. If I sit down to write about something, I need to want to be there — for myself and strangers, as Gertrude Stein used to say. The story I want to tell is something I want you to hear — but it’s also something I need to hear.
My writing is about what I want to learn from myself. Teach myself. Give myself. It’s reflection, empathy, remembrance, a kind of therapy I practice but do not preach. It’s never easy, but sometimes fun — and sometimes, it gives me the ability to escape the parts of my life I don’t like and dream about how it would be to change it.
Isn’t that we do for each other, as readers and writers? If this were a recipe, you’d want it in a slow cooker.
· One part memory
· One part projection
· Two thirds imaginary actions I wish I were brave enough to undertake
· One overall adventure resulting from said action
· Something that makes me cry hard enough to write about it
· Something else that makes me laugh
Putting them all together, stirring slowly, and waiting for the ingredients to flavor each other.
Which is why it’s better not to worry about getting it all done so quickly. What we should do instead is try it on and look in the mirror for a while. Take a walk and ruminate about it. Feed the baby and change a diaper. Give your mind a rest so when the ideas come, you’ll be ready for them.
I heard something similar from a teacher who headed a study session on Kabbalah, which is one of the Jewish holy books. She talked about how when God created the world, there had to be an absence of God, and of everything. There had to be an empty space because you can’t grow something unless you make a space for it.
I didn’t understand that when she said it, but I think I do now. To me, it means we need a blank page, or stage, or canvas or wall. Without that, there is no room for creation because if we write on someone else’s page, no one will be able to read our writing.
The blank page is what propels us. It invites us to scream, rant, laugh and celebrate. It asks us to find the essence of our story and then distill it into something audiences will remember. If it’s not authentic to us and our experience, it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. Right?
So go slowly. Take the time you need to make each word shine. If all you can write is three words, make them words that you truly need to see on the page in front of you. Don’t be afraid to unspool your world like a thread, unraveling. Choose the colors carefully and enjoy every second, even the bad ones that make you realize you have to throw them out and start over.
Two pages a day may be all you can do right now. Just keep going. Two pages, two hours, slowly by slowly. Don’t worry about your deadline, just do yourself a favor. Make every word you write into the one you want to read.
