Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Flannery O'Connor on writer discipline

Recently a successful writer friend of mine sent me Flannery O'Connor's thoughts on discipline for the writer.  It was included in a letter O'Connor wrote to her friend Cecil Dawkins:

"I'm a full-time believer in writing habits, pedestrian as it all may sound.  You may be able to do without them if you have genius but most of us only have talent and this is simply something that has to be assisted all the time by physical and mental habits or it dries up and blows away.  I see it happen all the time.  Of course you have to make your habits in this conform to what you can do.  I write only about two hours every day because that's all the energy I have, but I don't let anything interfere with those two hours, at the same time and the same place.  This doesn't mean I produce much out of the two hours.  Sometimes I work for months and have to throw everything away, but I don't think any of that was time wasted.  Something goes on that makes it easier when it does come well.  And the fact is if you don't sit there every day, the day it would come well, you won't be sitting there."

That pretty much covers the topic.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our next residency runs June 19-28 2015 and we are currently accepting applications for starting the program in June.   I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.