The Discipline of London

Jack London died at the age of 40. Prior to his death, caused by a mix of sleeping pills and booze, he wrote. ALOT. ALOT ALOT. His death as a suicide is an unknown... I'd be willing to bet it wasn't on purpose. Even if he did not think his writing was ever going to be truly understood.

He worked with a 1,000 words per day minimum. A strictness that I believe most writers must put into their lives, their work. Though their own standards may be different than one thousand words. He was a success... gained and lost money, yes... but he was a true success in the literary world. He died young but left a body of work to be admired and studied.

Way cool, my friends... way cool. What can I learn from him? What can we learn from him? When you have a passion, stick with it. Structure yourself. Get yourself organized so that you can focus on your passion instead of running around all scatter-brained. The type of organization doesn't matter so much, just as long as you're organized for you. London used to keep his notes on a clothesline that ran across his bedroom so that they sat in front of his face while he did his writing in bed.

Then he'd have two scotches in the early afternoon and go right back to writing. Not that I'm saying we should all drink for lunch (I mean, look his cause of death and his age...) but I am saying that routine and discipline are probably necessities, if you're going to try to get your lifework done in your lifetime.

I'm getting my daily routine pretty nailed down though it's not all the way there yet. Have been working on my second draft at night though, just a little bit at a time. And, surprisingly, I'm doing this draft by hand... I'll go back to the PC for the third draft. I can't help but wonder if this will be how I end up writing all of my work. PC for step one, handwritten for step two and back to PC for step 3.