Last summer I took a master class in comedy writing from Alan Zweibel, a former writer for "Saturday Night Live." He gave me a piece of advice that, at the time, seemed crazy. "Always be working on more than one writing project at any time," he said. "Two projects or better yet, three."
I nodded and thanked Alan for the tip, but inside I was thinking: I can't even read more than one book at a time. How can I possibly write two or three books at the same time?
But now I'm in my new apartment in Lisbon, Portugal, working on, you guessed it, three projects. And I completely see Alan Zweibel's point. I start every day working on book 2 in our new series, The Appleton Files. (Patience, please. The first title will be released in 2020.) Then, I take a walking break (3, 4, 5 or 6 miles) and come back and work on a mystery set right here in Lisbon, with the vibe of the girl on this narrow street.
Then I take a break for lunch and spend the afternoon working on the script for a documentary about my new heroine, Blanche Ames, an artist, inventor, and tireless suffragist who helped women win the right to vote.
That's a very long way of passing along Alan Zweibel's simple advice: Always be working on more than one project at a time. Said another way: The more you have to do, the more you'll get done.
Okay, carry on, young writers.
I nodded and thanked Alan for the tip, but inside I was thinking: I can't even read more than one book at a time. How can I possibly write two or three books at the same time?
But now I'm in my new apartment in Lisbon, Portugal, working on, you guessed it, three projects. And I completely see Alan Zweibel's point. I start every day working on book 2 in our new series, The Appleton Files. (Patience, please. The first title will be released in 2020.) Then, I take a walking break (3, 4, 5 or 6 miles) and come back and work on a mystery set right here in Lisbon, with the vibe of the girl on this narrow street.
Then I take a break for lunch and spend the afternoon working on the script for a documentary about my new heroine, Blanche Ames, an artist, inventor, and tireless suffragist who helped women win the right to vote.
That's a very long way of passing along Alan Zweibel's simple advice: Always be working on more than one project at a time. Said another way: The more you have to do, the more you'll get done.
Okay, carry on, young writers.
