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Lily King
Lily King
Lily King's Writing Routine:
Lily King's Writing Routine:
"I write the first draft of my novels in pencil in spiral notebooks exactly as I used to write those first short stories. I start at what I think is the beginning of the book and move mostly chronologically through to the end. Occasionally there is a back story, or a side story, but mostly I move forward through the notebooks. I section off the last 20 pages of each one for notes, for ideas I have for future chapters or for chapters I’ve already written. These ideas can be general ('Everything needs to feel relentlessly claustrophobic in this house”) or specific (“Have him give her his dead brother’s glasses”). They can be whole scenes, lines of dialogue, a fragment of detail. When the notes start to accumulate and confuse me, I make a timeline by drawing a line across the top of a page and little vertical notches along it and I make a list of all the things I think will happen, little and big moments I am trying to get to.
At the back of my notebooks I keep a log, a punch clock of sorts. When the writing day is done, I write the date and how much I’ve written. A good day for me is 3-5 notebook pages, but there are days, many, many days when I don’t write that much. Some days I write one page, or a half page, or one line. I do not force myself to stay in the chair until I’ve written a certain amount. I cannot do that. I know there are writers who force themselves to stay in the chair until they’ve written a certain number of words each day, but those writers, I am certain, don’t have children who need to be picked up at school. I try not to beat myself up about the days of few words. A lot of work is being done that is not writing, a lot of thinking, note-taking, and listening. Because the imagination is always working, churning up something. It’s the writer’s job to listen carefully."
Writers and Lovers, 2020
Read May 2023 & July 2024
Five Tuesdays in Winter, 2021
Read May 2024
The English Teacher, 2005
Read July 2024
Why I Chose Lily King:
Why I Chose Lily King:
I’ve read three of Lily King’s books: Writers & Lovers, The English Teacher, and Five Tuesdays in Winter, which is a short story collection. I first fell in love with her writing after reading Writers & Lovers, which follows a young woman named Casey who is working on her debut novel. While I always love a novel about an author, and this book explores many of the hardships that come with being an aspiring writer, this novel is so much more than that. It explores grief, as Casey is processing the sudden loss of her mother. Throughout the novel, the reader follows Casey as she navigates paying off her debt, falling in love with two very different men, and messily making the transition from young adult into adulthood. I fell in love with King’s storytelling and the authenticity of Casey as a character, which led me to reading more of her work.
King’s writing is sharp and to the point. Her prose is filled with dry humor and wit, but she also expertly pulls at a reader’s emotions when the time is right. Each word seems chosen delicately, as if every sentence is its own piece and of great importance on its own. At the same time, her writing is easy to read and flows as if it’s coming straight from the characters’ brains. Many passages from her books have stuck with me long after first reading them, whether because of the impact the characters have had on me or the beautiful way she describes universal themes like love, grief, and growth. Her writing is memorable, powerful, and inspiring, especially for those wanting to go into writing in the future. Her love for the craft is apparent on each page.
Passage from Lily King’s Writing:
Passage from Lily King’s Writing:
“I’d had a few bad days of writing, and I was tempted to go back a chapter to fix it, but I could not. I just needed to move forward, get to the end. Painters, I told myself, though I know nothing about painting, don’t start at one side of the canvas and work meticulously across to the other side. They create an underpainting, a base of shape, of light and dark. They find the composition slowly, layer after layer. This was only my first layer, I told myself as we turned the corner, the dog pulling toward something ahead, his nails loud on the sidewalk. It’s not supposed to be good or complete. It’s okay that it feels like a liquid not a solid, a vast and spreading goo I can’t manage, I told myself. It’s okay that I’m not sure what’s next, that it might be something unexpected.” (King, Writers & Lovers).
Writing Data:
Writing Data:
15
15
how I felt about the quality of my writing over the course of the four days, out of a possible maximum of 20 points
712.5
712.5
average words written per day
46.5
46.5
average minutes spent writing per day
How the Experiment Went
How the Experiment Went
Embarking upon this writing experiment was a daunting task. I specifically chose to start with Lily King’s writing routine because I knew it wouldn’t scare me away. Her mindset of not forcing herself to write a certain amount every day was really refreshing, and it grounded me as I started to work on my novel again after having left it abandoned for a while. I also was interested in writing on paper, because I’d only ever previously attempted writing on my laptop. Writing on paper felt a bit like a waste of time, because it really slows me down. What I like about typing is I’m able to get my thoughts down almost as quickly as I’m able to think them, so I was unsure how the shift would affect how much I would be able to write.
Over the four days that I followed Lily King’s writing routine, I wrote a total of 13 pages in my notebook (2850 words). What shocked me the most about this experiment was that writing by hand didn’t actually slow me down that much. I wrote between 600 and 800 words each day, which took between 40 minutes and an hour. This pace is pretty consistent with what my writing pace has been when writing on my computer, so the one aspect of King’s routine that had worried me did not end up affecting my output at all.
Writing by hand allowed me to be a lot more focused. While it slowed down the speed that I was able to write each word, it made for less gaps in between sentences or paragraphs, because my mind was always moving a little bit ahead of my hands. It kept my mind from drifting or reaching a blank, which was something I’d never experienced before. While I did use King’s advice in keeping notes in the back of her notebook of things she wanted to remember for the future as she was writing, I didn’t rely on it as much as it seems she does. I think this may be because I already have the overarching arc of the novel planned out. However, I still found it to be a good way to make sure little things that I think about as I’m writing will make it into the final product and not be forgotten.
To the left is my data for this experiment. Overall, I felt really good about the quality of my writing this week, and using King’s method for writing allowed me to give myself to the story I am crafting more fully than I have before.
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