Cory Doctorow has posted details about his writing routine at Locus magazine. It’s a brief collection of some excellent advice.¹ Here’s the bulleted list:

• Short, regular work schedule
• Leave yourself a rough edge
• Don’t research
• Don’t be ceremonious
• Kill your word processor²
• Real-time communication tools are deadly

For me, short and regular is ideal. I know many writers dedicate more than 20 minutes a day, but these 20 minutes are, for Doctorow, dedicated to the writing only. I suspect that writers with longer schedules include revision, planning, and research in their dedicated time. (Doctorow’s prohibition on research is, again, in reference to actual writing time: when it’s time to write, just write. You’ll always find time to look up the “TKs” later.) Another benefit of keeping the “actual writing time” low is that it sections off the hard work into an easily-managed chunk of time. The other tasks, like revision, planning, and research, are less arduous–indeed, are often the things that writers spend time on instead of writing–and so are easier to focus on during other time.

However, I’m still divided on his advice to “leave yourself a rough edge.” I’ve heard variations of this advice before: don’t say everything you have to say all at once, stop mid-sentence so your mind will keep working on the writing subconsciously, give yourself a jump-start for the next day, etc. It sounds like it makes sense, but if I’m in the middle of working out an idea, and have found myself somehow in the “flow,” I don’t want to risk losing it by stopping just because the time is up, I’ve reached the word limit, or I’m hoping for an easy start tomorrow. For me, if I’m just working through the writing to get something done, it’s fine advice, but advice I’ll skip if the muse is hot.

1. Despite the attacks on his knitting analogy in the comments. [back]
2. For some alternatives, check this post. [back]