Henry Miller on writing

[stgulik]

I saw these tonight and thought of all of you!

To keep himself focused on his writing, the novelist Henry Miller devised eleven commandments for success.

COMMANDMENTS

1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to ‘Black Spring.’
3. Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
5. When you can’t create you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
8. Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
9. Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.

Even though my writing assignments are nonfic, I feel inspired to adapt these commandments for government work. My favorite commandment is "When you can't create you can work." There are so many days when the inspiration it takes to get narrative to flow in one of my papers is hard to come by. I tend to hate myself on days I can't even get one paragraph on paper. But on those days, at least I can work - I can fix a chart, I can research a chronology, I can polish up my endless endnotes. Just because I'm not a genius most days doesn't mean I'm not still good.

Based on your own writing experience, what would you add to or subtract from these rules?

Comments

[stgulik.livejournal.com]

I like the way Henry Miller's commandments did two things: they exhorted him to focus on his priority projects, and they acknowledged that the human brain does need to unplug every day and take time for other pursuits. Taken together, the rules helped him remember how to prioritize his work days. And I can really respect that.

On my wall is an anonymous quote: "Being a good writer is 3% talent, 97% not being distracted by the Internet." (Ironically, I found this on the Internet, but that's beside the point.) As a writer, my own shortcoming is that I tend to drop out if a project gets particularly tough. I'd rather play Angry Birds than dig in and work through a writing conundrum. By the time I get back to it, I've forgotten most of my ideas, so the challenging piece sometimes doesn't even get written. That's why I liked these commandments. They spoke to me. They told me I'm not alone. They told me to keep trying.

But as you say, every writer is different, and thank goodness for that. If the only kind of writer were MY kind, there would be nothing challenging to read out there in the world, and only writers would have the highest scores on Angry Birds. :-)