The Ideal Writing Day (At Least to Write a Spy Novel)
As someone who has been writing daily – both professionally and for pleasure – for the past quarter century or so, I'm always trying to dial in the perfect routine. Not writing at all, while obviously the easiest, is also the worst. But writing too much, in my experience, can also be bad. Your brain gets fried and the output suffers – it's not fulfilling for you, the writer, or your audience (if you have one – or hope to keep one).
Anyway, while the Ernest Hemingway method was famously to write first thing in the morning, often around 500 words (which was the inspiration for an old site of mine), and quit while there was still fuel in the tank and then go about his day, I've personally found my natural inclination is to write more words – and more often. So of course when I saw an encapsulation of Ian Fleming's days making the rounds on social media, it resonated.1
To be clear, the image below is a simple schedule recreated from an interview the James Bond author gave to Playboy in 1964.2 I don't know why it's going around again this week other than it's summer time and it's awesome.
It's just about 5pm here,3 I'm just out of the pool, you know what that means...
1 And, of course, the whole "spy" motif as part of the inspiration for this very site. ↩
2 Other accounts of his writing routine and schedule vary slightly. ↩
3 Though I'm in Italy at the moment, not Jamaica (as Fleming often was at his estate, "Goldeneye"), which honestly feels even more like Bond. And, in fact, the opening of the mostly unfortunate Quantum of Solace was filmed right near where I am at the moment [via Daring Fireball]... ↩
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