If you were to do an efficiency analysis of my movements during a typical at-home writing day, you'd end up with a decidedly inefficient-seeming criss-crossed scribble of a pattern. Not enough walking to use very many calories, but enough to show my typical style is not to sit and write steadily. (A delightful Norwegian film, Kitchen Stories, makes droll use of this kind of analysis, and I highly recommend it.)
Every writer's typical daily routine and movements are different. That is, a writer's creative process -- how long you sit and when you just know you have to get up and change something physical -- is individualized. Let me share three examples from interviews I did some time ago with successful novelists. I chose the following because their erratic routines may not be what you'd imagine from such prolific writers.
Ursula K. Le Guin:
I get up, have breakfast, pet the cat, pet the cat extensively (it's an old cat), remove the cat from my lap, sit down to my notebook or computer. If the writing's not going well, I pet the cat, find a little housework or pet the cat some more. When the work's going well, I write my head off till noon, then stop and have lunch. I work three or four hours at a stretch.
Jane Smiley:
I always answer the phone if I'm writing. I can write while talking on the phone, if the conversation isn't all that interesting, I'll start writing secretly. One chapter of the book I'm writing now, I wrote while feeling very distracted. My bookkeeper was here, my kids were walking through, the cleaning ladies were walking through, the dogs were barking, I had to get up every several minutes to do something, and when I came back to that chapter later, it was great.
David Gerrold:
I go for about 15 minutes and then I just stop, refill my cup with tea, answer the mail, etcetera, for about five, maybe ten minutes, sometimes even as much as a half hour, then come back and go for another 15 minutes, take a break, then 15 minutes. And over a period of eight hours of work, the spreadsheet will show that I've done three to four hours of actual writing. Because I don't think it's possible to sustain four hours of straight writing.
Therefore, if your natural writing style is to jump up, do something else for a bit, then return to the work, accept that. The times I've tried to force myself beyond my comfort zone, sitting-and-writing-wise, I find that my subsequent break will extend much longer than it would have. And odds are I won't come back to the writing at all that day. If you're the highly focused type in all things, you're lucky, but if you're not, that's workable too.
So the next time you watch yourself move about your home a lot when you think you should be sitting still, don't think of it as inefficiency. It could be just what the doctor ordered for a fresher mind.
By the way, healthwise, many experts agree: sitting too much is bad for you.
