A Writer’s Orderly (?) Daily Processes

Posted on June 6, 2022 by Tom Bentley

You should have seen it before spring cleaning

When you read someone’s tweet about what they had for breakfast, you may have sighed and moved on. (Cereal today, by the way.) But in knowing that all writers are deranged in their particular ways, I have read with fascination how some writers work. Truman Capote said, “I am a completely horizontal author. I can’t think unless I’m lying down.” I guess you could balance a typewriter on your chest, but not easily.

At the risk of fascinating you, here’s a take on how a writer—this writer—delays, er, prepares for their writing day.

The Day Before and the Morning Of
If I need a glass of electronic water thrown in my face the next day, I’ll post a frantic, “You need to write this or die!” note in my Apple calendar to frighten me into action. Or further stupor.

Mornings begin early, before six, with coffee, blessed strong coffee. I used to read the news on my iPad while drinking the blessedness, but the news has been so wretched of late, I read email instead, which is more bitchy, less wretched. And sometimes it’s even fun. I don’t attempt to answer any business or personal email then, but just dip my toes in the waters to see if they are warm or cold.

Meditate, It’s Great
Every weekday, before 7am, for somewhere near 3.5 years, I have meditated for 20 minutes or so, seated in a comfy office chair, eyes closed, feet on the floor.

My Sanskrit is limited, so I repeat a series of words for an eight-breath count: One on the in-breath, Two on the out-breath, repeated four times, then Breathe In on the in-breath, Breathe Out on the out-breath, repeated four times, then the same counts on the words Peace, Strength, Calm, Wisdom. And then I start over again.

Because I am a cheapskate, I use the free timed sessions on Apple’s Mindfulness app, which let me add cheerful background birdsong or ocean sounds to the voiceover, mostly using the 20 minute one, which has a simple bell chime every minute for the last 10 minutes or so.

I also use the free (cheapskate) meditations on Christiane Wolf’s site; I’m partial to the 20 min. Mountain and the Mindfulness of Breathing mediations. I’m also partial to the 19-minute free (yep) Complete Meditation Instructions on the UCLA Health site, because I like to cuddle with the disembodied voice on the program.

I always end my sessions with Dr. Weil’s 4-7-8 breath method, which seems a good sendoff to the meditation. (His recommendations for dark chocolate are good too.) I am anxiety’s child and frequently sup on depression’s cupcakes, but these sessions over the years have helped me settle in during sour times.

CYA (Covering Your Art)
Then it’s on to actual writing work. I have been pitching articles less and less these days while getting ready to publish my shoplifting memoir. Here’s a WriterUnboxed (great writing site!) detailing of my working with a book cover design team for a couple of months, showing the evolution and final outcome of the cover possibilities.

These past few weeks, I’ve been narrowing down the best (and most practical) approaches to marketing the book, which likely will include a pre-order, with an incentive to get a free download of Flowering, my book of short stories, guest posts on writing sites that will let me link back to the book, and reaching out to some local and wider press. There are scads of other minor marketing matters I’m sifting through.

If I don’t have actual deadlines (and deadlines do help spur the laggardly writer), around 4pm or so I’ll do some reading of whatever books I’m currently reading—right now, Edwidge Danticat’s book of short stories, Everything Inside, and the Lonely Planet Guide to Malta and Gozo, because me and my gal are planning on gozoing to Malta.

Exercise, almost always, at mid-day, whether a walk on the nearby slough trails, a walk through our hilly semi-rural neighborhood, or a walk on the beach, which is blessedly near enough to make it easy. A 30-minute tour on the recumbent bike inside if it’s not a walky day.

In the Wee Hours
And those are the hours between six and nine, because I get up early and need my beauty sleep. I rarely work during these hours, unless there is something truly pressing. I will check email once and might have to address something in the eve, but more often than not, it can wait. And because I know how you feel about those breakfast tweets, I won’t tell you what I have for dinner.

Weekend work? Once in a while, but often not. So, that’s it. I’ve written a number of books and had perhaps a thousand articles published, so these structures have worked for me.

Your heart undoubtedly stopped once or twice while reading this thrilling itinerary of a writer’s processes. I know it’s not like Victor Hugo’s habit of writing naked, or Honoré de Balzac’s 50 cups of coffee a day, but give me time: I could always start on those tomorrow.

Links to Thinks

Continuing a theme I’ve employed for a while, below are some articles that offer helpful ways to deal with the madness of our days, which these days seems to be the madness of our years.

Effortless Effort: Relaxing While Trying Hard
“You can cook, wash dishes, talk to people, answer email, without needing to be tensed all the time, without needing to exhaust yourself. Notice if your torso is tensed up, your jaw clenched, your temples tight. Then relax.”

The Four Enemies to a happy life and how to defeat them
“If anger, hatred, and fear come to dominate our lives, they will separate us from everything in life that gives us joy. In their passionate, fiery maw, there’s little room to do anything else, let alone be present with others.”

How to Put Life on Easy Mode
“Do things as simply as possible: We overcomplicate things. What’s the simplest way you can approach the things you have in front of you? How can you make decisions with ease, instead of overthinking it?”

Making a Home for a Connecticut Yankee

Posted on September 14, 2021September 15, 2021 by Tom Bentley

If you know my handwriting, you know I didn’t work on this

I spend a lot of time reading, on a desktop screen. Some of it is my own writing, some the works of others, fiction and non, the subjects often about writing and the arts. Too much is the dreary news of the day, which mostly equals the dreary news of yesterday and a good bet to equal the misery of days to come. And I read the occasional novel on an iPad too.

But I always read a physical book during the day (or night) as well. Even when I read a great piece of writing online, something that moves me or provokes me, even when I nod in concert with the thoughts, note a sharp sentence, promise to look at something else the author’s written, something yet is missing.

What’s missing is what I can hold in my hands: a “real” book. So I had a special thrill when my girlfriend Alice’s sister moved out of San Francisco and into the Napa area recently, and engaged us to box up her book collection. She has a couple of different collector’s editions of literary works, back and forward from the 18th century to the 20th, all bound in lovely leather, various sizes and colors. It was tremendous fun simply to move them from shelf to box and gape at their glory.

So when she gave me as a reward A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, one of Mark Twain’s farcical fancies, I was stoked. It’s a hefty book, though only 300 pages. But broad enough so you could put a big sandwich on it, a glass of beer, an apple and some pie and still sneak in some peanuts.

The book is from the Collector’s Edition of Famous Editions, published by Easton Press in Connecticut, fitting for something about a Connecticut Yankee. The work is richly illustrated by Honoré Guilbeau, with the kind of chapter-heading red-ink rubrics you might see in a medieval monk’s manuscript, beholding to the 6th-century setting of the novel. It came with a bookplate, a book ribbon, a nicely done small brochure on its composition, and an intro written by Carl Van Doren in 1946 that includes some musings on medieval times, plus some pungent biographical notes on Twain.

I’d already read (and laughed through) Connecticut Yankee a couple times—it’s vintage Twain, railing against imperial estates and trappings, while throwing in many an inventive absurdity of the “fish out of water” type, though this big fish in this instance is shrewdly capable.

But it’s this book’s bookishness I want to remark on: such a pleasure to touch and smell its leather, flip through its flamboyant pages, feel its heft, admire its careful typography and design. However, it doesn’t take a collector’s edition of anything for me to take to a book like a fish in water. The paperback novel I’m reading right now (Ordinary Grace, by William Kent Krueger) and the nonfiction hardcover (Surviving Paradise, by Peter Rudiak-Gould) I’m stepping through—both appealing books, those solid, unflappable transports to other worlds.

And good for putting on the bedside table and putting your glasses on top of at retiring time.

I published a piece on Medium a bit ago about how my mom’s obvious love of reading when I was a kid influenced my path in life; I expressed in more detail my feelings about books there.

Many are the benefits of electronic reading, but a book will always feel more like a friend to me.

How about you? Electrons or paper?

Linkability

Here are a couple of my recent articles, followed by some from other writers, mostly on the mental health front, and which have been helpful in these unhelpful times.

Purple Prose and the Word Surgeon’s Scalpel

Unconsciously using too many “justs,” “verys,” “actuallys,” and other fluff evildoers in your prose? Cast them out! And those big words too. (Well, not all of them. Some are fetching.) Published by the fine folks at WriterUnboxed in August 2021.

What One Distillery Did To Gain A New Whiskey Still With A Grand History

My piece on Stumpy’s Spirits, a small Illinois distillery that recently bought a large amount of 100-year-old still components—from Belgium, off the internet—and has reconstructed them for their own use. These guys did a whole lotta work. Published in August 2021 by the WhiskeyWash newsletter.

The Mother of All Books

Posted on July 8, 2020 by Tom Bentley

From my early boyhood, I always wanted to be a pro baseball player. When my limitations as a ballplayer became more evident, I thought that being a writer would be just as good (and you didn’t have to try and hit a curveball). I don’t have to search around for why I wanted to be a writer—the answer is as easy as the one for why I’m around: my mother.

Since I was a toddling thing, I saw my mother reading. I saw her reading magazines and newspapers; I saw her reading books. And she wasn’t reading dime-store westerns (though that would have been fine too), but big novels, books that thumped when she set them down on the living room tables. I saw her reading books, enjoying books, getting more books.

My deep thoughts at the time: “Mom likes books. Books are good.”

Reading, Writing (and No Rithmetic)

So, I started reading too. She was right: books are good. The more I read, the more I wanted to write, so I started writing too. Writing is good. (Except when it gives me, as Mark Twain would say, the fantods.)

My mom continued to love reading until about 10 years ago, when her macular degeneration made words on the page a blurry mess. For a while, because she still hankered for that mess, she read with a giant magnifying glass, slowly but steadily, until that became too hard as well. I’ve written a number of books, and she had them all, even those published after she’d stopped reading. She loved books, after all.

She died at her assisted-living home in mid-June, after a stroke in late April. She was a remarkably kind and good person, funny and chatty, and fond of social gatherings and people in general. Even though she was 97, and lived a long and good life, it’s still a shock to have her gone. Whatever part of her I have is the best part of me.

Here’s the obit my sister and I wrote, which gives you a bit of her character:

Eileen Agnes Bentley

Thanks mom, for opening up the world of words, and all of their enchantments, to me. I hold you in my heart forever.

Links to Thinks

Linkability

Purple Prose and the Word Surgeon’s Scalpel

What One Distillery Did To Gain A New Whiskey Still With A Grand History

Other Writers Posts

Reading, Writing (and No Rithmetic)