Reading time: About 2 minutes
Caroline Dohack says she uses the same strategies she employs as a runner in order to encourage herself to write….
Caroline Dohack is a journalist who covers culture, technology and business. She also is an adjunct professor with the Stephens College fashion program in Columbia, Missouri. She is currently working on her first novel.
I was excited to talk to Caroline about how she approaches writing.
Q. Roughly how much time do you spend writing every day?
As far as typing words into a document, probably three to five hours. Otherwise I’m researching, interviewing, editing or wrestling with WordPress.
Q. What’s a simple activity or habit that makes you a better writer?
Most people will say reading widely and voraciously is the best thing you can do to become a better writer, and I don’t disagree. I’ll add that listening to music — and, even better, playing it — has shaped my feel for cadence and wordplay.
Q. What interferes with your writing?
My attention span leaves a lot to be desired.
Q. How do you persuade yourself to sit down to write on days when you really, really DON’T feel like doing it?
I’m a runner, and when I’m training for a race, I put in a lot of mileage each week. There are plenty of days I don’t want to lace up my shoes and hit the trail or treadmill, so I play little games to get through it.
“OK, just do the first 2 miles and see how you feel.”
“Alright, now let’s do the next one fast.”
“Whew! Get through the next one and you can have a couple jelly beans.”
I play the same sorts of games on days I don’t want to write. Maybe I have to write for 30 straight minutes, and then I get a morsel of fun before my next interval.
That said, if I don’t have any pressing deadlines and I’m feeling burnt out, I might take the day off — just like I would take a day off from my training if I felt an overuse injury lurking. Sometimes you just need a little extra time for recovery, and that’s OK.
Q. Is there a particular motto or saying that you’ve found helpful for writing?
“Stop the bullsh*t, Caroline” is a thing I tell myself a lot. [Ed note: Love the way you talk to yourself in the third-person, Caroline.]
Q. Which stage of the writing process do you enjoy the most: researching, writing or editing/rewriting and why?
Researching and drafting are like eating vegetables. I love vegetables! But revisions are dessert.
Q. What’s the best book you’ve read (either fiction or non) in the last five years?
That’s a hard one! Last year I went on a Kazuo Ishiguro binge, and it was excellent.
Q. What book are you reading right now?
Currently, I’m reading Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon and I’m listening to Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark. Next, I’ll probably seek something lighter like The Bad Sister, or The Dead Sister, or The Lying Sister or something along those lines.
Q. What do you think is the biggest misperception that new writers have about the act of writing?
The biggest misperception is that it’s easy! In movies, we see writers typing at a feverish pace as coherent sentences appear on the screen. Many of the young writers I work with think there’s something wrong with them when the words don’t come to them like that.
