Learning About Discipline from Steinbeck

While working on an assignment for grad school, I watched a short documentary on John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Much to my surprise, I learned that the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel was written in just under 100 days.

That was a shocker.

Three months to write one of the most important works in American literature. And it made me think, “Jesus, what the hell is wrong with me that I take so long to finish works of considerably lesser quality?”

The habit of writing

In reading up on Steinbeck’s writing process, I came across this quote from him:

In writing, habit seems to be a much stronger force than either willpower or inspiration. Consequently there must be some little quality of fierceness until the habit pattern of a certain number of words is established. There is no possibility, in me at least, of saying, “I’ll do it if I feel like it.” One never feels like awaking day after day. In fact, given the smallest excuse, one will not work at all. The rest is nonsense. Perhaps there are people who can work that way, but I cannot. I must get my words down every day whether they are any good or not.

– John Steinbeck

Habit, yes — the habit of writing every day is what I have when I actually manage to produce and hit (self-imposed) deadlines. Absence of habit is what I have had lately.

Granted, I have had a good excuse. Graduate school is no joke. But still.

There is another quote I have been pondering, something a friend of mine picked up from a podcast:

Be rigid in your commitment, but flexible in your execution.

This applies to so many things, not just writing. If you’re going to commit to something, commit to it and do not stray from your commitment. But accept that you will need to be flexible in how you keep your commitment.

For example, if you choose a commitment to exercise every day, then you have to stick to that commitment no matter what. But you may have to accept that circumstances dictate that sometimes your exercise may have to be confined to a walk around the neighborhood rather than a full-boor session at the gym doing HIIT or lifting weights.

I’m thinking about how I want to apply “rigid in your commitment, flexible in your execution” to my writing life, because I just haven’t been writing enough lately and it’s time for a realistic reboot. “Realistic” in the sense that school has to come first, and for the time being, I may not be able to write as much as I was before my program started.

I think it’s time to recommit myself to writing every day.

I’ve given myself a number of writing commitments over the past few years. For a long time, my commitment was to write at least a thousand words per day. I stopped that commitment when a problem developed: I found that I would push to get to those 1,000 words regardless of the quality of those words, and that became a big problem. Lately, I’ve been focusing a lot on improving at the CRAFT of writing, so a goal of quantity isn’t really a good one for me.

I think the commitment needs to be simple and achievable. I’m still smarting a little after announcing my May NaNoWriMo challenge and how badly I failed at that. I did pretty well the first half of May, when I didn’t have school to focus on, but as soon as my program started, I fell off the wagon immediately. I don’t want to embarrass myself with a failure like that again.

So I’m going to take a page out of John Steinbeck’s book (pun somewhat intended). He journaled every day that he worked on The Grapes of Wrath. Sometimes, his entries were filled with self-doubt:

I am so lazy and the thing ahead is so very difficult

– JS

But other times, he took a moment to encourage himself:

My will is low. I must build my will again. And I can do it.

– JS

Journaling each day that he worked on TGoW was a part of his strategy for keeping himself going and on-task — it was a tool of self-discipline. An absent journal entry represented a day he hadn’t worked — a day he had let both himself and other people down.

Alright. I’m going to do it. Back on the writing every day train, even if it’s only for fifteen minutes.

I’m no Steinbeck. I doubt I ever will be. But that’s okay; I’m still happy to work on mastering the craft of writing to the limit of my own ability. The pursuit of mastery, I think, is one of the most important things a human being can do. I don’t think it matters what you try to master, so long as you put your all into mastering something. To attempt anything less seems a waste of human life — a life half-lived. I don’t think it even matters if you REACH true mastery; what matters is the attempt.

So I commit to write every day. Just that — no word count minimums, no time minimums. Rigid in my commitment, flexible in my execution. And each day that I write, I will journal about it on my blog, even if it’s just a one-sentence entry.

Steinbeck said:

My many weaknesses are beginning to show their heads. I simply must get this thing out of my system. I’m not a writer. I’ve been fooling myself and other people. I wish I were. This success will ruin me as sure as hell. It probably won’t last, and that will be all right. I’ll try to go on with work now. Just a stint every day does it.

– JS

It gives me hope that even a master of fiction like Steinbeck struggled with self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy. I think his conclusion in the quote above — “Just a stint every day does it” — is the key.

One foot in front of the other. One word at a time. Bird by bird.

Today’s word count: 1,001
Manuscript total: 67,075

Credit owed to: BrainPickings.com’s article on Steinbeck’s diary