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Practice writing and read good books.>
Finding Time to Write
November 5, 2009
I hope you have read my review of Stephen King’s Memoir to Writing. Enjoying it now is my wife, and it is interesting how she pulls out parts to digest and talk about that I had only passed over. For example, she told me that King said a book should be written in a season - or about three months as she interpreted it. His point, as I said in my review, is that once you start writing you should get the story out of your system and onto paper - to see if there is even a story.
I promised in an earlier blog to talk about finding time to write. In his memoir, Stephen King tells us his goal is to write ten 200-word pages each day. On days he doesn’t write, he finds himself out of sorts and thinking about writing.
Writing ten pages in a single day is a rare occurrence for me, a luxury. Mostly, my writing is about incrementalism.
I try to capture an hour here, an hour there. On Saturday mornings I might get up early while the house is still quiet. When I travel, I try to discover a quiet place in the airport, sometimes with my laptop precariously balanced on my carry-on. Hunched over, I find myself recapitulating what happened when I last wrote. Incremental writing is not easy.
I have to go over the last ten pages or so to regain the flow of the narrative. As I reread, I try to look at areas where more description would help the reader better identify with events taking place. Editing leads to sentences getting turned around, so that not every one is subject-verb-object.
How much time do I write during a single week? It’s hard to calculate. I think three to four hours a week is about all I can usually muster. I write a lot in my “real job”, and sometimes it is hard after a day of intense mental concentration to bring myself to continue the mental effort.
This morning my wife and I talked about King’s book and this very subject. She is an excellent writer. She edits my stuff. She wants to write. But she can’t seem to find the time.
What’s the difference? I think it’s one word: passion. You either have it or you don’t, and talking about it doesn’t make it magically appear. Writing is a passion — especially when you don't have the time.
I want to share with you one of the restaurant scenes from my novel that I am writing, Bella Roma, where Rick dines alone in Rome near Testaccio the night before Marly arrives. It’s still in draft, but I thought you might like to experience a little bit of Italy.
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Rick took a seat at a small green plastic table outside the front of the Nuovo Mondo. Parked cars were pressed up against the line of cement pots planted with short green hedges designed to deaden the sound of car engines and keep the exhaust of passing vehicles from spoiling the food. Sitting so he faced the restaurant, Rick watched the pizza makers spin the dough, observed people coming and going up and down the sidewalk, and enjoyed the chaos and din of a warm night in authentic Italy. He would likely be the only tourist. A few non-Italian locals might be there, too, but this was a genuine, local tratoria.
The table was adorned with a single cheap paper placemat. On top was a plate piled high with napkins and silverware. A printed piece of paper enclosed in a plastic sleeve served as a menu. Rick could almost recite it, having eaten there numerous times before. Wearing the uniform of the wait-staff — white shirt and black pants — a waiter came running up to Rick’s table with pad and pencil. Rick had nicknamed this longtime employee of the Nuovo Mondo “the professor” because of his glasses, disheveled hair, and sometimes absentminded service.
“Vino rosso della casa, acqua con gas, baccalà, bruschetta con pomodoro, e una pizza con salsiccia e funghi” was Rick’s order of the night. A sprint back into the restaurant brought a bottle of bubbly water, red wine and a corkscrew. Two small beakers were tossed onto the table, and the bottle of now open wine sat between the glasses. The waiter broke the seal on the bottled water, set it down, and ran to a table of new arrivals. Hands waved, chairs and tables were reorganized by the new customers, and the conversation of hungry patrons perusing the paper menu quickly filled the air.
No amenities at the Nuovo Mondo. Just great service, good fun, memorable conversation for even those who sat alone and eavesdropped, and an unforgettable meal. The fact that the large restaurant filled within a half hour of opening and that people would soon be waiting outside for a table, were testimony to its reputation.
Arriving first at the table were the bruschetta and baccalà.
Baccalà is reconstituted cod covered and fried in a rich, thick batter. No dips for this antipasto are required. Just a wedge of lemon squeezed over the top to sharpen the taste. The cod itself has a consistency that coats the tongue and insides of the mouth.
Large mouth-watering bites consumed the large piece of fish much too quickly.
Basil-laced tomatoes floating in olive oil splashed across a large hunk of thick grilled bread rubbed with garlic made the Nuovo Mondo version of bruschetta the best Rick had ever tasted. There were many mediocre versions of bruschetta pomodoro available in Rome, and only the Nuovo Mondo had been able to duplicate the taste of his mother’s bruschetta. Every bite was savored.
Sips of red wine enhanced the natural flavors of each dish, and just the antipasti were enough for the small appetite. But if there was room for pizza, Rick knew that it would be a sin to pass it up.
The professor collected the antipasti plates from Rick’s table, and he gave a signal with a nod of the head to the pizza maker, as he passed by the marble counter lined with uncooked pizzas. Using a long spatula, the pizza maker scooped up Rick’s waiting order and placed it well in the back of the oven. Dressed in a white t-shirt and paper hat and covered in sweat from the heat of the oven, the pizza maker’s job was one of constant attention to the flow of the evening’s orders. There was no room for error, and a good pizza man was worth his weight in gold. Three minutes in a hot wood-fired oven produced the best pizza in town — literally.
“Salsiccia e funghi” the waiter sang as he tossed the steaming pizza in front of Rick. The crust fell over the sides of the large plate. The aroma was intoxicating. The beauty of a thin-crust pizza is that it satisfies the appetite and does not leave the diner feeling full. It is pleasant eating at its best. And of course, that means dolce and a digestivo can be consumed to complete the evening.
Conversation skipped across the outside as Rick slowly enjoyed his pizza. He listened to the Italians speak and laugh and trade expressive looks. They never seemed to stop talking. Women in particular liked to express themselves rapidly in sing-song fashion. Only bites of food and sips of liquid interrupted the lexis that tightly connected this culture.
Charles V, the last Holy Roman Emperor, was rumored to have said that he spoke to God in Spanish, to women in Italian, to men in French, and to his horse in German. It was easy to see why he would spend his time speaking to the Italian beauties who were seemingly everywhere in Rome.
A limone sorbet and an Amarro ended the dinner. A sour tang was the ideal finishing touch to the meal, and the Amarro settled the stomach and ensured good digestion.
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