Time management
Hello, class! Long time no see, Timmy, Neophyte. How was the weekend? I hope it was good. Today, we have an important assignment to tackle—something that, while clear enough to understand once you get down to it, can be tricky: time management.
No, please contain your boredom, Timmy, and your excitement, Neophyte. This particular lesson isn’t exactly about methods or protocols or steps to follow. Writing as a craft isn’t like applying a cooking recipe. Again, remember what I always said: “writing has no rules set in stone but proven patterns that work.” So, what now, Timmy? Where did you get that book about grills and grilling? From the cooking class’s special guest? Oh dear… you know what, leave it there on the table. When they inevitably come asking, we’ll say that it was just there when we got here. Okay? And Neophyte, there’s no need to roll your eyes.
Back to the lesson.
When we boil it down into its component parts, writing has the preparation phase, the writing phase, and the editing phase. We have been dissembling the preparation or prewriting phase for some time now, so I am not going to rehash that. Suffice to say, it can be one of the most extensive ones, especially when we can fall in love with it so much that the book we are meaning to write is forever in a “getting ready to write” cycle. But I have already covered that.
The writing part is actually pretty straightforward, a constant melody of symphonic writing intertwined with distorted noise of “PANIC.” All of you will discover that writing into the blank is infinitely harder than editing. And that is okay. The very first manuscript is always, unfailingly, going to be completely shite. Few and far between are those who can write something good out of the bat without any work or editing. You could be the chosen one? Maybe, but don’t count on it.
Timmy, get down from the chair and stop trying to be the one basking under the beam of sunlight… and you put on your stolen suit from the drama department? You know what, if you are going to be silent and just stand there, go right ahead.
Truth be told, getting back on topic, writer’s block happens when you have to write into the blank rather than editing your work. The phase where you just write your story is the most dangerous for your continuity than any other, the most prone to blocks, frustration, and the threat of abandoning your project.
My advice here, unless you have a very good reason, is to just keep moving on and accept that sometimes you have to stop what you are doing and then get back on the grind after a while. It is okay.
The secret, my dear students, is twofold, at least if you are like me in any regard. One phase where you set the main beats of your story, a second phase for editing. For those who are like me in style and being, this is probably the best way to handle it. The first part is the longest and most drawn-out; you don’t know your story, you don’t know your characters, and if you don’t know your characters, then you don’t know how they would act, react, think. Without that knowledge, you don’t have a story.
Which makes the editing part the most important of them all. By that point, you should have knowledge of your story and your characters, and with that information, you can actually tie all the story together. But, more importantly, you have something to work with, and having something to work on is far more valuable than being a genius storyteller who can tell the stories in one go.
It’s the editing phase that can make a story soar far above its original bounds, that makes the first manuscript seem like a poor first attempt, and let’s be real here, class, it usually is. I want anyone of you to look at me square in the face and tell me that your first manuscript is any good. Timmy! What are you doing drawing faces…faces in squares… but that is just a turn of… you know what, keep going, woe on me to stop someone else’s creativity.
Anyway, Timmy’s sudden urge to become a painter aside, the editing phase is your best friend, mostly because it is the easiest to implement since you have something to work on. Mind you the fact that is conceptually easier than the writing into the blank phase doesn’t make it any less simple, you have to have knowledge of your story down pat and a clear understanding of all its elements. The good news is that you can make as many passes and edits as you consider necessary. But, and this is a big ‘but’, when is your novel, short story, serial, etc. going to be over? Ah, youngsters, listen here, and listen to me while I whisper one of the deadliest words in the world, at least for writers: “deadline”. Please contain your shivers of terror. I know, I know, I understand. But, the deadline is your friend because in your work you have to have the inevitable. Without a deadline that you can respect, without a time limit that controls you, then you can get lost on “I am working on it”, such a terrible drug that one.
Timmy, I can tolerate most of your shenanigans, but you can’t play the “apothecary” with Neophyte’s medicine. Give them back now… no arguments there, now go back to your seat and listen.
Back to the topic, deadlines. I hated them too back when I was in school. I remember, so I once thought that I could just live without them in my work life. That is a fool’s idea. You need them, even if you later don’t fully reach them, you will at least aim for something that is finite and therefore tangible.
Because getting lost in time is oh so very dangerous and so very common. You may hate the idea, you may recoil in fear and disgust, I certainly did, but you need a deadline for no other reason than your sanity, to stave off stagnation.
You can’t do one thing forever; eventually, it will break you, it will consume you much like Timmy is munching on that apple with a furious face. What happened, Timmy, you don’t like that I forced you to sit still? Yeah, but you crossed a line, Timmy, and it’s respecting your classmate, that is why you will remain there until the end of the lesson.
Even if you don’t fully reach the deadline, the fact that you tried with all your might to fulfill it should be enough. It will teach you commitment, discipline, and responsibility, and above all, it will give your project, writing in this case, something to shape it. Can you write without a deadline? Yes, but it won’t be the same.
So time management is as simple as having a deadline, managing your phases correctly, and then panicking because you won’t reach it in time, but damn, you tried.
So anyway, before we close the lesson, we are going to have a serious discussion about shenanigans and boundaries, Timmy…
