Writing, Time And Creative Space

Merlin posted a great quote today on 43 folders, from novelist Neal Stephenson,

Writing novels is hard, and requires vast, unbroken slabs of time. Four quiet hours is a resource that I can put to good use. Two slabs of time, each two hours long, might add up to the same four hours, but are not nearly as productive as an unbroken four. If I know that I am going to be interrupted, I can’t concentrate, and if I suspect that I might be interrupted, I can’t do anything at all. Likewise, several consecutive days with four-hour time-slabs in them give me a stretch of time in which I can write a decent book chapter, but the same number of hours spread out across a few weeks, with interruptions in between them, are nearly useless.

Right there is the core of the struggle I had as a writer in India. Did I have four hours a day to myself? Yes, I often did. Was that ever available as one solid block? No, almost never. In fact, I seldom had an hour to myself. India is the land of interruptions and for me, that was hard to take.

There are lessons here is knowing yourself as a creator and maker. Merlin points out the way Stephenson has managed to be successful as a writer at the expense of being a good correspondent (emailer, etc.). It comes back to creating a working ecology that lets you flourish – space, time, room, environment. Processes like GTD will help you get the “ready state” in terms of your stuff and mental pre-occupations in check – but you still need to be realistic about the time you require to get meaning amounts of work done.