Rita Rudner once said, “I know a woman who was in labor for thirty-six hours. I don’t even want to do anything that feels good for thirty-six hours.” I sympathize with her. And while I have some war stories about childbirth that would make your hair curl, I’ll spare you the gory details and instead talk about another kind of birth - the birth of a story.

As any midwife will tell you, labor should be productive. All that moaning and groaning and pushing ought to be doing work for you–work in birthing a baby. The same can be said for the labor a writer goes through when she’s giving life to her story. How much of your “story labor” seems to be unproductive? How much time do you spend avoiding writing when you’ve got prime time to do it? If you’re like me, when you get an uninterrupted stretch of two hours of writing-alone time, why do you suddenly recognize an all-consuming urge to reorganize the linen closet, or do you develop a sudden and powerful love for ironing clothes?

Rita Rudner had it right. Long stretches of doing anything will gradually reduce your productivity. And when it’s something as labor-intensive as crafting story, burnout comes quick.

Pacing is just as important in your writing habits as it is in your writing. While nothing thrills me more than the idea of a muse-driven all-nighter of furious, fast-paced writing, waking up the next morning hung-over from the adrenaline rush of writing twenty thousand words in a single session does not come without its price. Sooner or later, the time to push will come, and if you’ve already spent your energy reserves, what have you got left for the rest of the ride?

The answer is found in nature. In labor, contractions are intense, but controlled bursts of activity followed by short periods of rest, and get the work done with maximum efficiency. Try applying the same thing to your writing time. Choose a short amount of time - somewhere between ten and thirty minutes. Focus and write for that amount of time, and when the time’s up, lean back, get up, walk it off, go clean the oven, or whatever other pressing need emerged when you first sat down to write.

Short, controlled bursts of ten to thirty minutes of focused writing time will give you enough time to get into a single scene, move from one plot point to the next, or create a meaningful exchange of dialogue between two characters. After which, your inner five-year-old is free to bounce around, get her snack, or steam-clean the curtains. Accumulate enough of these “quickies” and you’ll be delighted to discover you’ve made real progress.

Then you can go do something that feels good for thirty six hours.

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