The more I write, the more I notice myself repeating the same mistakes during the writing process, bad habits that waste time and energy. Since I’m often short on both, it’s worth being aware of those pitfalls and trying to avoid them. Maybe others have the same issues.

1. Writing without a map

Perhaps if you write novels or short stories, or if you happen to be a genius, you can just sit down at a keyboard and compose a story without knowing where you’re going. For me, that’s a plan for getting lost and wasting time. I don’t need to have a detailed outline of a story in order to start writing, but I tend to be much more effective when I jot down a basic structure of the story, a loose idea of where key elements of my story — interviews, research, and quotes — will wind up. All of this is subject to change of course, but without a basic map to follow when writing a first draft, I’ve found myself going in circles or drifting off into wordy tangents that don’t advance the story.

2. Stopping to sweat the small stuff

My best work comes when I can concentrate and write, uninterrupted, for a few hours at a time. I get into a flow, and suddenly, the ideas and the words flow together well. I’m better able to think about the broader arguments and themes I’m trying do develop, and the smaller parts of a story come together to develop that. Sadly, that experience is rare. More often, I write in herky-jerky bursts: ten or fifteen minutes on the subway, half an hour during lunch, or an hour or so late at night or before dawn. When I do get the rare stretch to work for a few hours, too often, I sabotage myself with constant interruptions: email, Facebook, sports scores. But worst of all is when I stop to do micro-research instead of staying focused on the writing.

An example: last week while working on a story, I wrote this line: “Right now, [???] American troops are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.” I didn’t know the number, though I had a rough idea. Instead of leaving that blank spot there and coming back later to fill it in, I clicked away to the web and spent 15 or 20 minutes trying to dig up and confirm an accurate number. By the time I was done with that – stopping along the way to check my email, Facebook, and the Lakers score – and tabbed back over to my word processor, I’d completely lost my train of thought. Whatever groove I’d gotten in was lost. Researching facts and figures is important, but often, they can wait until later in the writing process. Every time I minimize my word processor, stop writing, and start focusing on something else, I lose the focus and concentration it takes to do my best work. Life gives us enough interruptions as it is; we don’t need to create our own distractions.

3. Spending too much time on the opening

Here’s an unscientific chart of the amount of time I often spend on a typical ten-page story:

One of my most common mistakes is spending an inordinate amount of time on the beginnings of stories:  editing, revising, and rewriting them endless times, while giving later pages a fraction of that attention. Instead of getting a good complete draft on the paper, I obsess about the first 300 or 400 words, to the detriment of everything that follows.

4. Over-reporting

I pride myself on doing thorough reporting and research. Many writers I admire say that they report and research as much as they can, then wind up using a small sliver of what they found. But too often, it’s easy to lose valuable hours digging too deeply into part of a story that’s not essential to the core focus. For example, in a recent feature I worked on about war video games, a related issue to the story was a recent Supreme Court case. I watched the arguments over the case live, then printed and read half a dozen briefs. It was all very interesting, but much more depth than I needed for my article. When I wound up scrambling to finish my draft of the story, I rushed the writing of the final few pages, which were clearly the weakest part of the finished piece. In retrospect, those hours I spend reading and marking up long legal briefs were critical hours of writing time I wish I’d had back. Good reporting is one thing; burning up hours of time on questionably relevant research is just inefficient. The lesson? Good reporting is essential, but always keep the final story in mind. Ask yourself how essential each angle of research is to the core ideas and themes of the story.

5.  Letting darlings live

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch offered this famous bit of advice: “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it – whole-heartedly – and delete it before sending your manuscripts to press. Murder your darlings.” William Faulkner later shortened this advice to “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.” Elmore Leonard offered a similar take in more modern times with this simple rule: “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” What they’re all saying is that it’s easy to become too attached to a bit of writing that seems clever or “beautiful.” And often, that favorite little chunk of writing needs to go.

In my writing, this most often is a scene or a moment I think I’ve described well, but which starts to seem out of place with the rest of the story. Or it’s a line where I repeat an idea I’ve already expressed, only in some more clever way. It’s repetitive, but I can’t see that because the second line is seems so brilliant. Eventually, I usually bring myself to evict my darlings from a story and relocate them io a designated “outtakes” file. Somehow this doesn’t seem as final. In the 21st century, darlings never really die, they just move on to someplace else.