Geoff Rod

A lot of authors have similar stories.  They're employed in their professions, decide to write a book, and allocate a few hours at night and some more over the weekend.  It might take them awhile, but eventually they are able to get their book written by using that split work/writing method.

It was the right way to do it.  It was sensible.

I wondered why I couldn’t make it work when I tried that approach.  Maybe it was genetics.  Maybe it was practice, or training.   Maybe it was discipline.  I didn’t know what the missing factor was.  

What I did know – if I could only work in shorter segments at a time, say 2-3 hours, I couldn’t get enough into the book to write anything worthwhile.  The first couple of hours were when I reread the past ten pages, got back inside of each character, placed myself in each location, and got to where I could hear the sounds, and smell the smells.  I’d write a few test paragraphs to make sure I was capturing the overall tone of the book like I’d done on the other pages.  And when I was done acclimating, I’d be ready to start writing for real.

For me, the writing process didn’t work unless I could sit down for an entire day, with no noise, no distractions, and become fully immersed in the pages.

And maybe…if I admitted it to myself…there was another reason.

I was a little afraid of Denver Nights. 

I was confident I could complete the book if I could do it my way.  But if I could only do it in 2-3 hour increments – I called it ‘short-gap’ writing – it became more daunting.  Like being a marathon runner who's suddenly thrown into a 100 yard sprint.