by Ellen Baker

Quiet. I’m lying in the October sun on the deck of my just-rented cottage in storybook Castine, Maine, a coastal village of white clapboard houses and a glistening harbor surrounded by elms and maples dressed in their fall colors.

So quiet. Every writer’s dream?

I’m clenching my teeth.

Bev Bachel

The great thing about the new year is the chance for a “do-over.” What you didn’t get right—or done—last year, you can try again this year. This is especially true for writers. It seems that every novelist, poet, playwright, and memoirist I know longs for the big T: time.

But no matter how much more we desire it, we’re each given just 1,440 minutes each day. As a college professor once said when I complained about having to read ten novels in ten weeks, “It’s not how much time you have, it’s what you do with it.”

Here are some tried-and-true tips that can help you make the most of your time.

Go for your goals. You won’t be able to complete anything if you commit to everything. Be willing to say no, even when it means disappointing others. That way, you’ll be able to say yes in a big way to the goals you consider most important and the tasks that will help you achieve them. No, I can’t go out to dinner. Yes, I will see meet you for the movie that’s set in the same era as my historical novel. No, I can’t write a lengthy response to that e-mail. Yes, I will spend 15 minutes making a list of my main character’s flaws.

Break them into bite-size pieces. Going for your goals all at once is like trying to swallow an apple in one bite. Instead, break them into chunks that you can easily accomplish. Take one Loft class. Make a list of three agents. Write seven paragraphs. Doing what you set out to do, even it it’s just getting out of bed when your alarm goes off, unleashes an adrenaline rush that can help fuel you through your next to-do.

Get started. One of my favorite writing tools is the kitchen timer. The next time you find yourself procrastinating, set the timer for 15 minutes and start doing. When the timer goes off, stop. Or continue. It’s your choice. And regardless of which you choose, you will have gotten an important start on whatever you’ve been putting off.

Make use of the margins. If you’re like most writers I know, it’s hard to find time to write. There are work, kids, household chores, and more, all screaming for attention. Rather than waiting for a day off or an evening when you’re home alone, start making use of the margins, those small pockets of unexpected found time—when you’re on hold, when your gal pal is late for coffee, or when your teenager refuses to get off the phone. Take advantage of the small, and you’ll be surprised at how much you’re able to scrawl.

Track your numbers. Tracking your numbers every 30 days will help you make better decisions. There are many different numbers you can measure: minutes spent writing, word count, queries sent, queries accepted, poems written, and freelance-article income are just a few examples of the types of numbers that should be guiding how you spend your time, energy, and creativity.

Good enough, move on. Rather than agonizing over whether the protagonist in your novel should be wearing an amaranthine sweater or one that’s aubergine, call it purple and move on. As my friend and fellow writer Carolyn says, “Done is better than perfect.”

So, whether you long to finish your novel, journal more consistently, or make more money as a writer, now’s the time . . . ready, set, restart. It’s the best way to make the most of the coming year.

Bev Bachel is a full-time writer and author who’s enjoying her 2011 restart.

by Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.

—Robert Frost

Robert Frost’s words point to the foundation of all good writing:  the writer’s open heart. A writer’s willingness to be moved by his or her work is an invitation to the Muse; it is a free, exploratory state that allows what’s hidden in the recesses of our being—ideas, imaginative worlds, unanswered questions, psychological battles, memories—to emerge. What lurks in the private unconscious also lurks in the collective unconscious, and so the work that bubbles up when a writer puts pen to page is a glimpse, however brief, of the great mystery of being human. We writers must enter into relationship with this mystery, in one of its trillions of guises. Only then do tears and surprises—the transformation of both the writer and the text—become possible.

by Ben Obler

In poker, when I call half the pot with a straight draw and middle pair, against one other player, in late table position, I know where I stand. I know it’s the right decision. However it shakes out, I will regret nothing. But in writing, when I put my protagonist, Gus, in the aisle of a home improvement store for the scene when he gets the call from Priscilla, how can I gauge this choice? As he eyes the mole/vole repellent package midconversation, finding the cruelty unexpectedly tantalizing, can I be assured there’s not a better symbol in the lumber aisle? Or lighting, or plumbing? Maybe Gus should be kinder. Maybe he shouldn’t be talking to Priscilla at all! Uncertainties stack up in a hurry, as numerous as cards in a deck.

by Lawrence Perlman

pensiero

The following remarks were made prior to a reading by Lawrence Perlman at Open Book October 6, 2010, from his novel The Last Layer.

Thank you all so very much for coming. Before I read a few passages from The Last Layer, I thought I would address the question that is more or less on all of your minds: “How did this guy, who spent his life in the real world—as a lawyer, law professor, and CEO—come to write a novel?”

by Clem Nagel

aptmetaphor

It was Earth Day 2010 . . . and was I prepared. Typical of me, I brought everything except the office desk lamp. Extra pencils, blank paper (in case someone forgot), name tags, paper clips, Scotch tape, roll of paper towels, Band-Aids, easel pad, masking tape, markers (I used to work for the YMCA), books, and my detailed class outline for each of the coming four weeks. I had been invited to teach a series of poetry classes. I arrived at the residential senior center community room half an hour early to get acclimated.

by Pete Hautman

About 30 years ago, publishers discovered that sending their authors on “book tours” was a good way to sell books. It wasn’t really a new idea—Mark Twain was an intrepid tourer—but it was not until the 1980s that touring became a standard publisher’s strategy for building an author’s “brand.” Booksellers loved it. Author appearances brought people into their stores—even authors nobody had ever heard of. The strategy worked. For a while.

by Athena Kildegaard

I first loved my husband in the fall of 1979, and I’ve been loving him again and again ever since. All that time I’ve written poetry, but until January first this year I’d written only a handful of love poems.

That curious pair of facts began to needle me in early December last year. Driving from here to there I thought about a love poem by Dorianne Laux I’d read that morning, how true and necessary it was and how unwrought it seemed. That thinking led me to wonder why I’d written so few love poems over the years. I realized that I was just plain afraid of writing them.

Interview by Dara Syrkin

During her 1999 Bush Fellowship for midcareer physicians, Maggie O’Connor dedicated 10 percent of her time to learning how to write. “I had terrible writer’s anxiety. I chose my college classes based on which ones required the fewest essays. English 101 gave me stomach cramps. I decided I had grown up. The time had come to deal with my anxiety about writing.”

Fear or no, Maggie embraced the newness of writing. “My dad started weaving when he retired. So when I set out for the Loft with my guts quaking, I had the reassurance that old people can learn. I sat in classes and introduced myself as a science and math jock who wanted to learn how to write. One of the wonderful things about being a beginner is that you are free to ask any question.

by Eugénie de Rosier

It was a grand task to take up the humanitarian challenge of Peace Corps work for 27 months in Southeast Asia. Whew! It was great to come home in May 2008, but not so fine to be faced with the chore of a job search in our slumped economy. Nonetheless, I started a disciplined and organized effort in June.

Seventeen months later, in December 2009, I was still without full-time employment and had been wrestling with writing fiction full time. I’d made a commitment to writing twice and did so for two weeks each time. Downbeat newspaper articles or national labor statistics affected me and I returned to networking. Not seeking paid employment was scary.