Now, practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts. All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts. People tend to look at successful writers, writers who are getting their books published and maybe even doing well financially, and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million dollars, feeling great about who they are and how much talent they have and what a great story they have to tell; that they take in a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter. But this is just the fantasy of the uninitiated. I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her.

I wrote that draft short assignment by short assignment, making each section, no matter how small or seemingly casual, as good as I could. I took out whole paragraphs that I loved, paragraphs I’d shoehorned into the book because I liked the writing or the image or the humor. I worked on it for eight or nine months, sending off the first third, which my editor was amazed by, and then the second section, which he loved. I finished the third section around the time I broke up with a man with whom I’d been involved for some time. I had a brainstorm: I would mail the third section off, borrow the money to fly to New York, and spend a week there, doing the line editing of the book with my editor and, at the same time, getting away from this man I was breaking up with. Also, I could collect the last third of the advance that Viking owed me and do a little retail therapy in New York City.

Writing by hand was important for me. I wasn’t staring at a screen, getting distracted by my email. A computer or a smartphone between you and the team is a huge barrier to focus and sends a clear message to everyone in the meeting: whatever I’m looking at on my screen is more important than you.

Even just taking notes on a computer was a nonstarter. Sometimes when I’m typing, I just . . . type. Whatever I’m writing down doesn’t make it all the way into my brain. But there was too much on the line for me to zone out, to not hear every word my team was saying.

The act of using a pen, then retyping and editing later, forced me to process information differently.

Every Sunday evening, I would go through my notes, reassess and reprioritize all my tasks, rifle through the good ideas, then update those papers on a computer and print out a new version for the week. Continually reprioritizing allowed me to zoom out and see what could be combined or eliminated. It let me spot moments when we were trying to do too much.

Those were the evenings when I’d realize why we were so overwhelmed—we had said “yes” to too many things and we needed to start saying “no.” And then came the hard work of figuring out what had to be delegated, what had to be delayed, and what had to be crossed off the list. I was forced to prioritize based on what really mattered, as opposed to what was just top of mind. That let me keep my eye on the bigger goals and milestones ahead of us, not just the fires at our feet or whatever feature we were most excited about that day.

Then Sunday night I’d email the whole list out to my management team. Each item had a name attached to it. Everyone could look at the top of the list to see what I’d be focused on that week, what they were accountable for, and what the next major milestones were.

And every Monday, we’d have a meeting about it.

Everyone hated it. I literally watched people flinch when I’d bring out the papers, scanning them for the thing I’d been asking about for weeks. That thing I’d refuse to forget about because it hadn’t gotten crossed off the list yet. On June 3 you said it would be ready by the end of the month. It’s now July—what’s the status of this project?

When I finished the novel I had a good feeling that I’d created my own writing style. My whole body thrilled at the thought of how wonderful—and how difficult—it is to be able to sit at my desk, not worrying about time, and concentrate on writing. There were untouched veins still dormant within me, I felt, and now I could actually picture myself making a living as a novelist. So in the end the fallback idea of opening a small bar again never materialized. Sometimes, though, even now, I think how nice it would be to run a little bar somewhere.

Their best shot at it would be to work closely on the revisions in a focused way without interruption.

Morrison had just moved into her new home on the Hudson, and Bambara joined her there for three days as they went back and forth with edits and revisions to ready the book for publication. “She’d write and I’d edit some,” Morrison recalled

She would go upstairs and work, then she’d run down the stairs and say, “What about this?” Then I would sit down and go over that, then she’d run back up the stairs. It was the most amazing— but certainly extremely efficient, for us— way to do it, because she was so clear. She could focus immediately. I would just have to grunt and point and she knew exactly what I was suggesting.