Almost every executive level person I've dealt with seems to think that everything they do that's even tangentially related to their job should count as "time spent working." Thought about it in...
Almost every executive level person I've dealt with seems to think that everything they do that's even tangentially related to their job should count as "time spent working." Thought about it in the shower? Count it! Had lunch with a coworker? Working lunch! Count it! Took an hour to work out at the gym so you can be relaxed and sharp when you go back to work? Count it! Basically, unless they're specifically doing something that's not work, like playing golf or sleeping, they think it counts as burning it the midnight oil.
They never extend this interpretation to anyone they're paying though.
"Of course not! I can justify my own actions to no end because I have full view of my motives. Everyone else is lazy because I can't see their motives in front of me."
"Of course not! I can justify my own actions to no end because I have full view of my motives. Everyone else is lazy because I can't see their motives in front of me."
Having lived with someone for the past 20 years who can regularly work 36 hours straight, sleep 4 hours, and do it again the next day with nothing more than coffee, I disagree. When my partner is...
To pull it off, she works 20 to 22 hours a day. (A couple times a month, when she feels the crunch, she spends a full 24 hours at her desk.)
I find it baffling that they’re just reporting this as a fact and moving on, considering that there’s no way it’s true.
Having lived with someone for the past 20 years who can regularly work 36 hours straight, sleep 4 hours, and do it again the next day with nothing more than coffee, I disagree. When my partner is in that zone, nothing else exists, they are hyper focused, and it does not end until they have worked through that particular part of the project. When it does end, they sleep for 10 hours and resume their normal 12-14 hour work day until the next problem. Some people are built like that.
Is it unreasonable? I tend to only sleep for 2-3 hours on average—it seems plausible, especially in a field like writing, where cognitive dysfunction is genuinely helpful.
Is it unreasonable? I tend to only sleep for 2-3 hours on average—it seems plausible, especially in a field like writing, where cognitive dysfunction is genuinely helpful.
My experience is the opposite, really! More sleep only tends to happen whenever I'm depressed, and I usually awaken feeling rather awful both physically and mentally—something that generally lasts...
My experience is the opposite, really! More sleep only tends to happen whenever I'm depressed, and I usually awaken feeling rather awful both physically and mentally—something that generally lasts me throughout the entire day.
Never heard that phrase actually. I'm a professional writer and often write until I'm very sleep deprived after long nights/all-nighters to hit deadlines. And I can tell you that personally,...
Never heard that phrase actually. I'm a professional writer and often write until I'm very sleep deprived after long nights/all-nighters to hit deadlines. And I can tell you that personally, writing like that is hell for me. It's near impossible for me to write anything in that state, let alone material I'd want to spend time editing.
What happens most of the time is that I give up and succumb to sleep. Or I push through the wall and reach a new equilibrium of not-tired.
That said, I write mostly non-fiction stuff relating to providing value in the form of "useful information" and "actionable content". I could imagine if I was writing fiction or something less rigid how it might be different.
But for the most part, I disagree with what you're saying; cognitive dysfunction is not helpful for writers at all, unless perhaps if you're trying to journal your state of cognitive dysfunction :p
It's a Hemingway quote, so I have to admit, I'm somewhat surprised you haven't! Quite popular. (Though disclaimer, I'm also a professional writer myself; fiction-leaning, granted.)
It's a Hemingway quote, so I have to admit, I'm somewhat surprised you haven't! Quite popular. (Though disclaimer, I'm also a professional writer myself; fiction-leaning, granted.)
"To me your twenties and a good part of your thirties are about working hard so that you have a better quality of life later on." She is now in her 70s, a multimillionaire, and that "quality of...
"To me your twenties and a good part of your thirties are about working hard so that you have a better quality of life later on."
She is now in her 70s, a multimillionaire, and that "quality of life" she's put fifty years of toil into apparently means taking one single week off a year while spending most of the rest of her waking hours working. She's spent her whole life working in order to have a handful of months of not working in total (assuming she lives another 15-ish years). If she was working the hours she says she did, and I have no reason to disbelieve her, she missed her kids growing up. She missed most of her marriage. She missed most of her life.
I get that she's doing what she wants and I'm all for people doing what they want to do, but what she wants is so alien and so unwantable to me.
Once you have a formula down you can just hire ghost writers and only have to write the story ideas while someone else does the actual novel. A friend of mine ghost writes for some "pretty big...
Once you have a formula down you can just hire ghost writers and only have to write the story ideas while someone else does the actual novel. A friend of mine ghost writes for some "pretty big names" and makes a nice income doing so.
You're absolutely right. If anyone has never read any of King's less popular fare, give it a shot. It's definitely not Misery or Cujo or Insomnia, but they're servicable. I think this is something...
You're absolutely right. If anyone has never read any of King's less popular fare, give it a shot. It's definitely not Misery or Cujo or Insomnia, but they're servicable.
I think this is something a lot of young writers dont really know or maybe dont fully grasp. Of course the old saying is "No one writes for money", but in my experience that's just not true. I think if more writers took this approach starting out we would have a lot wider range of highly talented authors with large bibliographies to peruse, which as an avid reader sounds GRAND.
I'm not advocating elitism, simply discretion. Where you draw the line is doubtless an ongoing personal conversation, but why release something if you're not proud of it in some way?
I'm not advocating elitism, simply discretion. Where you draw the line is doubtless an ongoing personal conversation, but why release something if you're not proud of it in some way?
I debated phrasing that differently when I was posting... I mean proud more in the sense that you'd stand behind it. Your audience might not want what you want but you're still entitled to your...
I debated phrasing that differently when I was posting... I mean proud more in the sense that you'd stand behind it. Your audience might not want what you want but you're still entitled to your own opinion of your work. The creator's convictions don't need to answer to the audience... writing for sales and writing for yourself can be somewhat contradictory, like any artistic endeavor. As I say, where you draw the line of compromise, if you're aiming to do both, is an ongoing personal conversation.
Haha. Lol no. Danielle Steel managed to write 179 books the same way Katherine Applegate managed to write Animorphs. Through copious use of ghost writing.
Haha.
Lol no.
Danielle Steel managed to write 179 books the same way Katherine Applegate managed to write Animorphs. Through copious use of ghost writing.
Almost every executive level person I've dealt with seems to think that everything they do that's even tangentially related to their job should count as "time spent working." Thought about it in the shower? Count it! Had lunch with a coworker? Working lunch! Count it! Took an hour to work out at the gym so you can be relaxed and sharp when you go back to work? Count it! Basically, unless they're specifically doing something that's not work, like playing golf or sleeping, they think it counts as burning it the midnight oil.
They never extend this interpretation to anyone they're paying though.
"Of course not! I can justify my own actions to no end because I have full view of my motives. Everyone else is lazy because I can't see their motives in front of me."
Having lived with someone for the past 20 years who can regularly work 36 hours straight, sleep 4 hours, and do it again the next day with nothing more than coffee, I disagree. When my partner is in that zone, nothing else exists, they are hyper focused, and it does not end until they have worked through that particular part of the project. When it does end, they sleep for 10 hours and resume their normal 12-14 hour work day until the next problem. Some people are built like that.
Is it unreasonable? I tend to only sleep for 2-3 hours on average—it seems plausible, especially in a field like writing, where cognitive dysfunction is genuinely helpful.
You should get more sleep.
This isn't an intervention thread, it's a commentary thread on a person's writing habits. If I didn't naturally wake up so soon, trust me: I would.
I’m jealous. I often can’t function on anything less than 8.5 hours.
Same. It's so far outside my experience it's like hearing someone say they can breathe underwater.
My experience is the opposite, really! More sleep only tends to happen whenever I'm depressed, and I usually awaken feeling rather awful both physically and mentally—something that generally lasts me throughout the entire day.
How is cognitive dysfunction helpful for writers? Or am I missing some sarcasm? :D lol
You know the phrase "Write drunk, edit sober"?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1739867/
Never heard that phrase actually. I'm a professional writer and often write until I'm very sleep deprived after long nights/all-nighters to hit deadlines. And I can tell you that personally, writing like that is hell for me. It's near impossible for me to write anything in that state, let alone material I'd want to spend time editing.
What happens most of the time is that I give up and succumb to sleep. Or I push through the wall and reach a new equilibrium of not-tired.
That said, I write mostly non-fiction stuff relating to providing value in the form of "useful information" and "actionable content". I could imagine if I was writing fiction or something less rigid how it might be different.
But for the most part, I disagree with what you're saying; cognitive dysfunction is not helpful for writers at all, unless perhaps if you're trying to journal your state of cognitive dysfunction :p
And sleep so little like that is bad for your brain (and everything else), specially long term. And sometimes not recoverable.
I think that's a non-sequitur, no?
I don't know. There's plenty of interesting topics here on tildes about sleep. This one is really good. Also this.
It's a Hemingway quote, so I have to admit, I'm somewhat surprised you haven't! Quite popular. (Though disclaimer, I'm also a professional writer myself; fiction-leaning, granted.)
"To me your twenties and a good part of your thirties are about working hard so that you have a better quality of life later on."
She is now in her 70s, a multimillionaire, and that "quality of life" she's put fifty years of toil into apparently means taking one single week off a year while spending most of the rest of her waking hours working. She's spent her whole life working in order to have a handful of months of not working in total (assuming she lives another 15-ish years). If she was working the hours she says she did, and I have no reason to disbelieve her, she missed her kids growing up. She missed most of her marriage. She missed most of her life.
I get that she's doing what she wants and I'm all for people doing what they want to do, but what she wants is so alien and so unwantable to me.
It's amazing what you can accomplish when you stop writing for quality and start writing for quantity. That's where the real money is.
She's giving them what they want. You could make the same criticism of Stephen King - another formulaic and prolific writer.
Once you have a formula down you can just hire ghost writers and only have to write the story ideas while someone else does the actual novel. A friend of mine ghost writes for some "pretty big names" and makes a nice income doing so.
You're absolutely right. If anyone has never read any of King's less popular fare, give it a shot. It's definitely not Misery or Cujo or Insomnia, but they're servicable.
I think this is something a lot of young writers dont really know or maybe dont fully grasp. Of course the old saying is "No one writes for money", but in my experience that's just not true. I think if more writers took this approach starting out we would have a lot wider range of highly talented authors with large bibliographies to peruse, which as an avid reader sounds GRAND.
According to interviews with King himself, he was so high when he wrote Cujo he doesn't even remember writing it.
All the best stories are written in the middle of vice-fueled benders.
Ehh... by all means, write as much as you can and get the bad books out of you. Releasing them for public consumption is another story though.
I'm not advocating elitism, simply discretion. Where you draw the line is doubtless an ongoing personal conversation, but why release something if you're not proud of it in some way?
I debated phrasing that differently when I was posting... I mean proud more in the sense that you'd stand behind it. Your audience might not want what you want but you're still entitled to your own opinion of your work. The creator's convictions don't need to answer to the audience... writing for sales and writing for yourself can be somewhat contradictory, like any artistic endeavor. As I say, where you draw the line of compromise, if you're aiming to do both, is an ongoing personal conversation.
Yeah I don't typically go in for that type of negativity masquerading as realism though. Every story has an audience, no matter the quality.
Haha.
Lol no.
Danielle Steel managed to write 179 books the same way Katherine Applegate managed to write Animorphs. Through copious use of ghost writing.