In our Craft Capsules series, authors reveal the personal and particular ways they approach the art of writing. This is no. 277.
“Work on one thing at a time until finished,” Henry Miller wrote in his “11 Commandments of Writing,” found in Henry Miller on Writing (New Directions, 1964). I always found it ironic, if admirable, that such an author of appetites embraced an ascetically monogamous work ethic. I mean, good for Miller.
Me, I’m a shameless cheat.
When I feel stalled in one form, I flit to another. Maybe it’s an inherent restlessness, my starfish brain. My first novel, Lech (Tortoise Books, 2022), took such a long time that I pooped out a story collection, Jerks (Mason Jar Press, 2022), in the process. In fact, Lech took such a long time that I also diddled in flash, knocking out little bits that would later become part of my latest novel, Hidden River, which was published in May. In the interim, I took on another project, switching gears entirely to coedit an anthology with Seth Rogoff titled Smashing the Tablets (SUNY Press, 2024), which explores radical retellings of the Hebrew Bible, and itself took ages, challenging me in very different ways. During all that I cranked out a fiction chapbook. Chaotic, maybe. But my narrative promiscuity feeds the work.
Perhaps it sounds counterintuitive. But as a kid the semesters that were clogged up with team sports and other commitments translated to better grades. Maybe the juggle helps with efficiency. Or maybe the buzz from the field made calculus more palatable.
Everything’s connected, right?
Of course, Miller had a point. The splayed, multitasking mind is not necessarily suited to deep, sustained thinking. If we’re constantly bouncing around, how do we plunge beneath the surface? Many of us could practice better focus and concentration, especially in a world where our diminishing attention span is gratified by feed after feed upon feed. (Excuse me, while I check my phone.)
But books take time. It’s unrealistic to expect a complex story to arrive on the page intact, or to assume a writer could intuit the ins and outs of character overnight. Character discovery (their fears, motivations, desires) can be slow going. We spend a lifetime getting to know people. I still don’t know some of the characters I live with.
Remember “The Story,” from Arnold Lobel’s beloved Frog and Toad Are Friends (HarperCollins, 1979). Frog’s sick in bed, so Toad sets out to entertain him with a story. Only nothing comes. Toad goes to punishing lengths to jog his brain. He knocks his head against the wall. The masochism’s on point. What writer hasn’t been there?
Instead of torturing yourself, you could transgress. I often turn to the short story. I’m drawn to its quiet shape and demand, the sheer ambition in “its grain of sand,” as the author Steven Millhauser puts it. There is terrific freedom to be found in its container. It’s where I feel most at home. Plus, a little dopamine hit from a story acceptance doesn’t hurt while in the thick of a longer beast. These modest jolts invigorate the work in progress. I doubt I’d ever finish anything without them.
Let Miller be appalled. (Imagine! Me, scandalizing Miller!) The only commandment I follow is to chase the energy. Do whatever keeps you going.
Today it’s this craft essay. Who knows what it’ll be tomorrow.
Sara Lippmann’s most recent novel is Hidden River (Tortoise Books, 2026). She is the cofounder of the Writing Co-Lab, an online teaching cooperative, and the editor in chief of Epiphany magazine.
image credit: Sarah Elizabeth
