[Many of us are caught in the following predicament: we have tremendous pent-up wanderlust, but we don’t feel that it’s quite safe enough to travel yet. So, let me present you with some excerpts from my book A Writer’s Paris to help slake some of that wanderlust, while at the same time providing you with lessons of values to writers and all creatives. These essays also connect to my recent book Redesign Your Mind, as they present new ways of thinking about the creative process and the writing life.]
Imagine that you’ve managed financially and emotionally to set yourself up with a six-month writing jaunt in Paris. Congratulations! Here is a perfect plan for those six months. It posits three writing stints a day: two hours in a park, two hours in a café, two hours in your tiny studio (or some similar routine). Yes, that is a lot of writing! But that’s the point. You have come to Paris to write, not just to stroll and have adventures. The croissants and museums will take care of themselves. You must take care of the writing.
Day 1. Arrive in Paris. Gather your wits. Collapse.
Day 2. Look for your rental (if you haven’t arranged one from home). Walk everywhere. Savor.
Day 3. Look for your rental. Walk everywhere. In a café, pull out the notes for your novel. If you haven’t begun your novel yet, entertain ideas. Massage your feet when you get back to your room.
Day 4. Secure your rental for the first of the following month. Celebrate by writing. Splurge on a snack, perhaps a L’Opéra pastry and a really big cup of coffee. If you don’t have an idea for a novel yet, ask for help from a passing American tourist. Say “Excuse me, I’m about to write a novel and need to choose among the following ideas. Which of these novels would you most like to read?” Ignore your respondent’s advice, but take careful note of your own reactions.
Day 5. Commence your writing routine of three writing stints a day. With luck, this will amount to six pages a day (two pages a stint). Six pages a day is a novel in two months’ time. If you can manage it, you will be well ahead of schedule!
Day 6. Write.
Day 7. Write.
Day 8. Write. Visit the Red Wheelbarrow bookstore or some other anglophone bookstore. Practice your English. Swap writing-in-Paris stories. Make a date with a stranger for coffee. Say to the bookstore owner, “When my novel comes out two years from now, can I do a book-signing here?” That way you’ll have your first book-signing arranged.
Day 9. Write. Have coffee with that stranger. Write or make love, or both.
Day 10. Write, unless you feel the need to read what you’ve written so far. Be careful! If you decide to read, be ready for a shock. You may have made a mess, and you may need to regroup. On the other hand, you may love what you’ve written. In that case, exult. Exult by writing.
Day 11. Take a day trip to Monet’s house in Giverny. Write on the metro to the commuter train. Write on the train to the bus. Write on the bus to Giverny. (Don’t miss your stop!) Write on a bench with a view of the Japanese footbridge. Wander over to the Museum of American Impressionism (Musée d’Art Américain) just down the road and use one of their excellent bathrooms. Write on the stone bench in front of the museum. (Don’t miss the last bus! They stop running early in the day.) Write on the bus to the commuter train. Etc.
Day 12. Maybe the blues have stuck. Splurge on a mystery, maybe one set in a Paris arrondissement, and read it all the way through. Talk to someone. Fall in love. Don’t worry about writing today. But plan to write tomorrow.
Day 13. Say au reυoir to your lover. Back to work! Write, write, write.
Day 14. Two weeks in Paris! Catch up with your e-mail at an Internet café. Have a nice lunch followed by a two-scoop Berthillon ice cream cone. Nap by the Seine.
Days 15-64. Write, write, write.
Day 65. You are practically a native. You can get around, you can get your hair cut. How are your finances? Better check and see. How are your emotions? If you’re feeling too weird, take a mental-health day. Remind yourself that writing in Paris is a brilliant way to make meaning and that you are absolutely on track. Make this sales pitch work. If necessary, treat yourself to chocolate. If you haven’t been writing enough (or at all), release your guilt and embarrassment and start fresh. Consider it Day I.
Days 66-98. Write, write, write.
Day 99. Three months is a long time! If you’ve been writing on a daily basis, you will have written thousands of words. Should you read and revise, or just keep writing? If it has been your habit to write without revising and that habit has gotten you into trouble before, bravely read what you’ve written. Weep for the parts that don’t work and revel in the parts that do. If, on the other hand, it has been your habit to revise so tightly that you end up with constipated nuggets, skip revising. Keep writing. You can read what you’ve written when you get back to Boise.
Days 100-134. Write, write, write.
Day 135. You’ve spent more than four months living in Paris. Hardly one in a million writers pulls off this feat. Celebrate by buying a silly hat and taking a day trip to Chantilly or Fontainebleau, two forests-with-castles just outside of town. Picasso used to visit Fontainebleau to “gorge on green” (so he could then disgorge all that green when he got back to the studio). In the evening, buy a CD of Parisian café songs and play them at a friend’s apartment.
Days 135–l68. Write, write, write.
Days 169–179. Catch some of the sights you missed by writing so much: the Musée Rodin, the Paris sewers, Voltaire memorabilia at the Musée Carnavalet. Pat yourself on the back. Get ready for the long flight home.
Day 180. Say au revoir to Paris, but not good-bye. If you are braver than anyone I know, read your manuscript on the plane.
If you pull off the heroic feat of writing in three stints a day, you will actually write your novel in six months’ time. This is no pipe dream—it will absolutely happen. It could also happen right where you are. If you have a day job or similar commitments, follow this plan: one writing stint at five in the morning, one at lunch, and one in the evening. You will have a draft of your novel written in six months’ time. I guarantee it.
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