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Interview #251: Bridlington Today Interview, Entry #1

Question

Can you give me an idea of your daily/nightly routine when you’re writing? Do you have a pages-per-day target? Do you let the writing flow and then go back and tinker or do you spend lots of time in meticulous plotting and planning?

Robert Jordan

After breakfast, I go to my desk, deal with the phone calls and e-mails that really have to be dealt with, then start writing. Usually, this begins with going over the last scene completed to see whether I can tighten it up, make it better in some way. By the end of that scene I am into the flow again. I’m supposed to stop at midday for lunch, but unless someone reminds me, I usually forget until 4 or 4:30 in the afternoon, by which time it’s a little late. At 6pm I knock off, do my backup, and go into the house to help Harriet get dinner on the table. I don’t have a pages-per-day target; I simply write and see how it falls out. Sometimes this involves lots of time put into plotting and planning while other times it is just a matter of letting things rip. Either way, however, whatever I write will be rewritten a number of times, perhaps a great number. I always think I could make it better given a little more time.

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