Not Writing is Still Writing
These 6 non-writing activities help me write books and become a better writer. Part of the BTS of Book Writing series.
This post is part of my Behind-The-Scenes (BTS) on Book Writing seires. ICYMI, I’m taking paid subscribers along as I write my third book, a memoir. These pieces are archived in the BTS of Book Writing tab. Recent pieces include a breakdown of my writing routine and how I plan my book writing schedule to meet a deadline.
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Hi, hello, I’m back home from France and also not sick anymore, yay!
This week, I want to talk about the non-writing things that are essential to my writing. I’m specifically talking about book writing here, but this applies to really any type. Books are different from smaller projects like personal essays mainly because of the sheer scale: they require one to build and hold a large, complex, shifting organism in one’s head for months or years. Still, I’d say the same activities can facilitate the production and betterment of an essay (or an op-ed or a Substack newsletter or whatever), just on a smaller scale.
I got the idea that real writers write every day mostly, I think, from Stephen King’s memoir/craft book On Writing. (More on that below). In the last piece in this series on my writing routine, I noted that I don’t write every day and have completed two books by writing 3 to 4 days a week and not writing the rest. While writing my first book, I had serious anxiety about any time I spent not writing (sitting there at my computer physically typing new words or editing or actively thinking hard about the book), wondering if I was cheating or fooling myself or doing it wrong and going to fail. By the time I finished my second book, I’d grown a lot more confident in my non-writing time as essential to the writing process and have been able to identify patterns in the things that really help me and how.
That’s what this piece is about! I’d love to hear what works for you in the comments, so please share.
6 non-writing activities that help me write books and become a better writer
Note: I do all of these things except getting on the floor regularly in my daily life, but in the bubble of book writing, I do them differently, more often, and with some twists. I’ll explain.
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