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I’m writing from the end of the year with a calendar in my hand.
This calendar is a single sheet of paper. On it, there are columns for each month and rectangles denoting each day. Over the course of 2023, I used this calendar to keep a work log.
My process was simple. For any day I wrote, I listed the name of the project inside the corresponding rectangle. For any day I worked out, I put a “W.” Any day I swam received an “S.” Any day I read something I wanted to read (not work related) garnered an “R.”
People often ask me how to become a writer. My answer is always the same: write. After studying this calendar, I realized that my answer was too simple. So, for those of you interested in taking a closer look at the writing life, here’s a breakdown of my year in words.
I tallied 276 writing days. I started off keeping a word count for each day, but that ended by February. The reason? I felt myself straining to get more words on the scoreboard, instead of making each word count. I settled on simply listing the project’s name as long as I got my butt in the chair and worked on something, anything.
According to the calendar, fall and spring were my most productive seasons. This felt counterintuitive at first. I always tend to think summer and winter breaks will yield the highest results. I now realize that vacation times are too unpredictable for solid chunks of writing. By contrast, seasons where school is in session are great for the daily creative routine (and childcare).
I worked on a total of five different projects, three of which have been either scrapped or tabled for later. The lesson here, as my dear friend Alex Taylor likes to say, is: “Write what you write and let the devil take the hindmost.”
Regarding my physical regimen, I totaled 126 workouts and 106 free swims in Lake Dardanelle. Like Socrates, I believe in the importance of physical fitness. I also believe exercising the body helps bolster the mind.
For the workouts, I rotated between upper and lower body days at my home gym in the basement. Nothing too heavy, or crazy. Just enough to get a good sweat going.
For the swims, I made my same thirty-minute lap around the lake, dodging the occasional bass boat or dive-bombing seagull. I will say, some of my best story ideas came while in the water. My first swim of the year was on March 15th. My last was on November 16th (though I still stand in the lake some mornings for a post-workout "ice" bath).
I’m especially proud of my reading statistics. I read thirty minutes or more for 301 of the 365 days of 2023. This was not reading for class, or for some publishing related endeavor. This was reading for the pure pleasure of it. I often tell my students that they must read to refill their creative tanks. Good books are fuel for a writer's mind.
All in all, I’m pleased with what I see on the calendar. The rectangles bear no mention of book sales, awards, or new publishing deals. The calendar is simply a ledger of the work, the daily process of it, which is what matters most in the end.
| Books authored by Eli Cranor |
Broiler
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The troubles of two desperate families—one white, one Mexican American—converge rest in the ruthless underworld of an Arkansas chicken processing plant in this new thriller from the award-winning author of DON’T KNOW TOUGH.
Gabriela Menchaca and Edwin Saucedo are hardworking, undocumented employees at the Detmer Foods chicken plant in Springdale, Arkansas, just a stone’s throw away from the trailer park where they’ve lived together for seven years. While dealing with personal tragedies of their own, the young couple endures the brutal, dehumanizing conditions at the plant in exchange for barebones pay.
When the plant manager, Luke Jackson, fires Edwin to set an example for the rest of the workers—and to show the higher-ups that he’s ready for a major promotion—Edwin is determined to get revenge on Luke and his wife, Mimi, a new mother who stays at home with her six-month-old son. Edwin’s impulsive action sets in motion a devastating chain of events that illuminates the deeply entrenched power dynamics between those who revel at the top and those who toil at the bottom.
From the nationally bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author of Don’t Know Tough and Ozark Dogs comes another edge-of-your-seat noir thriller that exposes the dark, bloody heart of life on the margins in the American South and the bleak underside of a bygone American Dream. |
Don't Know Tough
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In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his mother’s abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, but when his savagery crosses a line, he faces suspension.
Without Billy Lowe, the Denton Pirates can kiss their playoff bid goodbye. But the head coach, Trent Powers, who just moved from California with his wife and two children for this job, has more than just his paycheck riding on Billy’s bad behavior. As a born-again Christian, Trent feels a divine calling to save Billy—save him from his circumstances, and save his soul.
Then Billy’s abuser is found murdered in the Lowe family trailer, and all evidence points toward Billy. Now nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the whole town apart on the eve of the playoffs. |
Ozark Dogs
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In this Southern thriller, two families grapple with the aftermath of a murder in their small Arkansas town.
After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt.
Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend—or in some cases, destroy it. |
| Previous columns: |
• Writing from First United Methodist Church
• Writing from the end of the first semester
• Writing from the cusp of another visit
• Writing from a Razorback Game
• Writing From: The End
• Writing from Oyster Island
• Writing from Jayne Lemons
• Writing from Bed
• Writing from Witherspoon Hall
• Writing From: Coco
• Writing from the Beach
• Writing From: Crooked Creek
• Writing from a Nursing Home
• Writing from a Firework Tent
• Writing from a Boat
• Writing from the Stars
• Writing from the Pool
• Writing from the Kitchen
• Writing from Summer
• Writing from Kindergarten
• Writing from Mom
• Writing from a Plane
• Writing from Home
• My second novel’s publication
• A New Marriage Milestone
• An Invitation to the Party
• Writing from a Thunderstorm
• Writing from a Soundbooth
• Writing from “Jazz Beach"
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• Writing from the Sabbath
• Writing from somewhere between Little Rock and Russellville
• Writing from my back deck
• Writing from the morning of my thirty-fifth year
• Writing on the day of the college football National Championship
• Writing from the space between breaths
• Writing from 2022
• Writing from the glow of a plastic Christmas tree
• Writing on a rollercoaster of triumph and disaster
• Writing from the drop-off line at my daughter’s elementary school
• Writing with Thanksgiving on my mind
• Writing from the crowd before the start of a Shovels & Rope show
• Writing from the depths of a post-book-festival hangover
• Writing from the Ron Robinson Theatre
• Writing to you on Halloween Eve
• Writing from my bed on a Saturday morning
• Writing from my office with two darts clenched in my left hand
• Writing from the shade of my favorite tree
• Writing from my desk on a Tuesday morning
• Writing from a pirate ship
• Writing from the airport
• Writing from the hospital
• I'm writing from the water
• Writing from my wife's Honda Pilot
• Writing from my office |
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