My drug of choice is writing––writing, art, reading, inspiration, books, creativity, process, craft, blogging, grammar, linguistics, and did I mention writing?
#6 is obviously groupie threesomes
Also, this is obviously a complicated metaphor for
creativity and not just a license free image for the word
"process"
Image description: simple chemical distilation
As my bass ackwards week continues, I offer you Friday's menu tour on Tuesday. Today's menu about process has clued me into the fact that I desperately need to take a break for a day or two some day soon and spend that time just updating all the menus. There are definitely some articles that I need to add to this list. Generally, there is a great deal of confusion about the difference between process and craft. A lot of folks who enjoy writing and have a refined process, are not particularly good at the actual craft (like me) and a lot of people who are quite adept at craft struggle with the process for their entire lives. Many excellent writers have written only a few stories, and cannot motivate themselves to write more. Or they write brilliantly, but only when under deadline for a class.
Very often the trouble here is that writing well is only half the story and usually only a small portion of the difficulty most writers struggle with. If the technical skill of writing is not married to a good sense of process, then what you end up with a very good writer who does not produce very much. Indeed, most writers have more difficulty just sitting to write than they ever do with the prose itself. (Although, unfortunately, most writers focus on learning the technical skill almost the exclusion of working on their process.)
While concrete imagery, dialogue, or characterization are craft elements, how many times to draft, when to write, how important research and how to sit down and produce every day is process. These are articles about the process of writing and whatever insight I have gleaned about it.
I feel like I'm not writing when I'm revising. Does editing/revision count as writing?
[Remember, keep sending in your questions to chris.brecheen@gmail.comwith the subject line "W.A.W. Mailbox" and I will answer each Monday. I will use your first name ONLY unless you tell me explicitly that you'd like me to use your full name or you would prefer to remain anonymous. My comment policy also may mean one of your comments ends up in the mailbox, but likely only if you ask a question. Process questions are always welcome.]
Valery asks:
I love your advice about motivation, writing every day (even though I don't strictly speaking follow it) and so on. Nevertheless, I finished the first draft of my novel last year and have been editing/rewriting it ever since. My question comes in two parts. The background is that I have always been very good at starting projects, but not finishing them or seeing them through to a completed work. For my 2012 New Year's Resolution, I looked at the 10k words or so I'd done of my big novel (which is absolutely, "the book I would want to read") in the previous 5 years and decided that I would work on nothing else until it was finished. I would set aside what time I could and write during that time, forget about how good or bad it was, forget about getting it right or going back and redoing the last thousand words. And it worked. I finished the story. There was a whole bunch of things I needed to change, and do better (because I have learned so much more about, and am much better at, writing than I was when I started the novel 8 years ago), so the editing process has taken a while and a lot of effort. But I finished the first draft. My problem is that I still don't feel like I have finished the project, but if I put all my time and effort into the rewriting/editing process then I feel like I'm not writing either, just reorganising. The 2-part question is, 1/. When you say to write every day, how much does editing impinge on the time for writing, or does editing and writing count as the same thing, at least as far as the advice goes? 2/. If I should be working on a new writing project to keep the writing juices flowing, how can I keep focused on finishing the editing of the first one as well, and not let it be just another abandoned project?
My reply:
Revision is a beast. And not the awesome kind with the multiple backs either.
(Before I dig into my tortilla-less burrito–which will make a lot more sense in one paragraph–let me take a moment to say that I am almost through the hopper. I think I have one more question to go before I start cannibalizing random conversations I have with people on the street. "Hey you. Ask me a question about writing. I said ASK ME A QUESTION ABOUT WRITING OR I'LL SHIV YOU!!")
Back to the non-shiv question though: revision is also more important than tortillas in a burrito when it comes to good writing. I mean if you just want to jam your hand down into a pile of ingredients, that's fine, but good writing needs to be held together with some cohesion.
I'm not sure how exactly a fork would fit into this deeply-flawed 3am metaphor.
If you strapped me to a table and there were a laser about to bisect me, junk first, and you demanded the secret to being a writer, I would tell you to "earn your er." I'm going to presume you tolerate my enigmatic answer and wouldn't just speed the laser up with a wave and a roll of your eyes. If you asked me how to be a good writer, I would tell you to write every day and get feedback from time to time. If you asked me how to be a published writer, I would tell you two things: finish what you start, and second, revise.
Finishing what you start...well that's just a matter of doing it. You've done that part, Valery. And it hurts and it's hard but that's the critical first step. The world is filled with flittery writers who flit from one half finished project to the next and never actually finish anything. If that brings them joy and fulfillment, who am I to judge? But for those who talk about their career as a writer and "making it" and write Stephen King and Neil Gaiman wondering why they're not famous already, it's going to be critical to finish things.
As for the rest, I want to divide my answers up because there are definitely two answers going on here. There is THAT WITH WHICH WRITERS AGREE ™ and there's WHAT I DO™.
You guys (not you personally Valery) ask me a lot of questions about the uber-basics. You ask me a lot of questions about grammar. You send me a lot of hate mail. You have a few questions about craft. Once in a while I field questions about publication or blogging. But I don't get a lot of process questions beyond the basics. So it's going to be really important to make sure I draw this distinction.
Writers diverge pretty spectacularly on process. Every writer forages their own path that works for them. They all mostly agree on the basics like writing every day or the importance of revision, but after that it's the fucking Hunger Games of what works. Vonnegut would write the page he was on over and over until it was perfect, and then he would go on. Stephen King writes out his whole novel (I'm pretty sure in two or three sittings based on how prolific he is). Then he goes back and reads the whole thing for revisions. I know several writers who revise as they go. You should be doing whatever it takes to get the right words on the page in the right order.
So when I tell you what I do, I'm really just telling you what I do. If it works for you, great. If it doesn't, forget it. Find what works.
What most writers agree on.
1-You have to revise.
No getting around it. Gotta do it. Cost of doing business. Get 'er done. Insert cliche here.
You'll get better with it as you get practice at the skill of writing. Eventually you'll revise a little as you write, but you're always going to have to do it. Always.
I know some of you are thinking "Not my novel! It just needs a little polish for grammar mistakes." Yes, YOUR fucking novel. You need to revise. Everyone needs to revise.
To date I've heard of only a single published novel that didn't have major revision work done on it (Gilead by Marilynne Robinson) that was sat and written just about cover to cover, and she said she was contemplating it for over a decade before she wrote it–so really she did revise; the process just happened in her head for years before she actually started typing. But whatevs, that's one book out of thousands. One.
You have to revise.
2- Actually rewrite at least once.
Here's an interesting tidbit that 99% of published authors agree on. And unfortunately garners the reaction from almost any non-published writers that they're too cool for school. You should actually completely rewrite your manuscript at least once.
Word processing on computers has given us the ability to just open the text file and edit it. Which is both holyfuck blessed awesome and more horrible than crotchstench after a long summer day of mini-golfing without undies.
The less detail I go into about that, the better.
Obviously fixing the fact that you wrote "I find your farce enchanting in the mooonlight" without rewriting the whole page or having a liquid paper/white out disaster is nice, but the problem is that we're less likely to fix big issues in our stories if we feel like it's possible to get away with being lazy.
Given half a chance we really, really, really don't want to perform major surgery on our story, even if it's a first draft.
We won't cut whole chunks, rearrange, cut characters–all the things that rough drafts really need to become good. We get invested in the structure, and often end up polishing a turd because of it. We're more likely to make the big changes that will really help our story if we actually rewrite the story since we're going to have to rewrite the whole thing anyway.
Even consumable literature authors (who write mainstream books with cultural resilience on the level of your average TV show) suggest completely rewriting a working novel at least once. Authors aiming for a more "literary" product suggest you completely rewrite multiple times–five or ten even. I would caution you not to let this process keep you from finishing something, but it's good to keep in mind.
So print that badboy out, and COMPLETELY rewrite it from beginning to end. Your brain will engage the writing in a whole different way. (I'm sure some day they'll hook writers up to MRIs and confirm this.) You will find SO much more you should revise, reword, rethink, restructure, cut, and completely change than if you try to poke at a preexisting manuscript.
I know I know. "Not my novel."
Revision. Puppies. And enthusiasm during oral sex.
3- The more the better.
This should go without saying, but it doesn't. Your piece of shit first draft novel that you revised once for 20 hours is still a piece of shit. (That's not a personal attack. So is mine. Mine probably more than yours, actually.) Revision is the soul of good writing, and long hours are the prerequisite for even passible published work.
The longer you spend revising, the better your work will be.
There's some divergence between authors about how many major revisions you ought to write. (This is in addition to the complete rewriting, but these revision sweeps can be done on your existing text file.) Some say at least three, and some say you don't start to get to the really good writing until the eleventh draft. But notice that even your disposable airplane paperback author is saying at least three revisions. And that's before calling in the editor.
There is a point at which endless revision becomes the method by which a writer doesn't finish a project and doesn't take the risk of putting their work out there. I'm sure you know writers who endlessly tinker on their finished stories. At some point you have to let them go out on their own. But for most writers their curse goes the other way. They think it's perfect and there aren't any possible revisions to be made long before most readers would find it palatable. 4- Breaks between revisions.
Almost every writer takes a break between each incarnation of their revision. Between your first and second draft is absolutely critical and should be at least a few weeks for a longer work, if not a month or two. You need to forget what you meant and all the places where your brain was doing the heavy lifting instead of your writing. And I can't stress enough that writers (especially me) sometimes get a hard-on for turns of phrases or particular words and they use them TOO DAMN MUCH. A couple of months will help you get some fucking perspective on how annoying you were. When you go back, your work should have that strange, familiar/unfamiliar feel. Like you're poking around the old neighborhood and half the stores are different, the arcade has been torn down to make room for an Ikea, yet Lou's Bagle shop is still right where it was, and the lakeside apartment complex never replaced that sign you broke when you were eleven. That's the only mindset in which you're going to be able to catch your own problems.
Between each revision you can wait a little less time. You don't need to wait months between your fifth and sixth draft–maybe just a couple of days.
5- Yes, you need peer review, and almost certainly a professional editor.
You do. Get over it. If you are working on a short story, you can probably get away with self editing, but even then you need someone who isn't you to take a look at your work. And if you have a manuscript as long as a novel, you're going to need to feedback from someone who can really help your writing pop.
You can't see your own mistakes. You know what you meant, so you are the worst person to try and identify where you were unclear. You might be filling in too many gaps in description with a memory that your reader doesn't have or just think that a scene you're picturing is perfectly described when it's a train wreck.
This isn't just about a proofreader either; you need an outside reader.
A professional editor should be a no brainer on a novel-length project. Yes, they're expensive, but yes, they're worth it. There are just too many reasons you need one. And too many pitfalls if you don't have one. Almost every novel you've ever found even remotely readable has had a professional pass by an editor. 6- Stick with it until you're done.
So I've tried to keep it to things most published/accomplished writers agree on. This one gets a little murky. Not every writer does this the same way.
Many authors have one project they're writing and one they're revising basically at all times. Other writers work on one thing at a time and do things like read intensely during those breaks I talked about in number four. Some authors pause to write short stories from beginning to end including revision while they are breaking between drafts of their novels.
But all of them stick with what they are doing to see it through. The stories of the novel that took twenty years to write (or something) are actually quite, quite rare. They don't put the draft away to give it some air and never come back to it. Nor is their revision process an endless recursive loop of improvement. Eventually what all accomplished/published writers have in common is that they stay with a project until it is done enough to put it out in the world.
What I do.
I tend to share your feeling, Valery, that if I've spent all day revising, I haven't written much, so I break up my days and always include some raw, unfettered writing–even if it's just free writing or journaling. I'm fresh and sharp in the mornings and I usually do most of my revising then. At night I have much more driving stamina but not so much precision to notice stuff so I do a lot of drafting at night.
So I'm almost always writing one thing at night and revising another in the morning.
Also, I'm a tweaker. (Not like that.) I am constantly going back and tweaking what I've written before. In fact, a good writing session almost always starts with me getting into the mood by going back five or ten pages and reading through what I already have. That's actually what revs me up to do the writing itself. Now I still need to completely rewrite, but doing all that tweaking does mean that when I go back over things in revision, it tends to be pretty close to how I want it. It's more like polishing tarnish and less like using sandpaper and a heavy hand to rub out a deep scratch.
That keeps me writing a lot even as I'm revising. Valery, I hope the suggestions help you, but don't hesitate to do whatever works for you.
The best book I've ever found on writing...actually found me.
Back in the mid-nineties I went to Santa Monica College (a community college just a few blocks from the pier). During those rare moments when I wasn’t angsting-out over my general lack of marriageability to a nice Muslim girl (long story) or pacing a car dealership on the graveyard security shift with a book in hand (less long of a story, but still pretty long), I liked to wander from SMC where I took classes to UCLA where I lived in one of the zillions of Westwood apartments that crowded around the campus (that's a pretty short story...in fact I just told it). I bussed to SMC each morning, arriving bleary eyed at noon for class, but with only a class or two, I often had hours to kill afterwards, and I would leisurely stroll home, taking a different route each time. Sometimes I’d go north then east, and sometimes east then north, and sometimes I’d zig-zag back and forth.
I look back on how much damned time I had to waste back then with a bit of a head shake, to be absolutely honest.
This is a six mile distance catty corner to the street alignments, so I was never going to run out of new combinations of routes. I delighted in moseying down a new street I’d never seen before and gazing at new shops, restaurants, and boutiques throughout Santa Monica, Palms, Westwood, and sometimes even Brentwood.
Often I got deliciously lost, and occasionally only realized I was heading the wrong direction when I noticed I was heading into the sunset.
It was during one of these fantastically lost moments, when I was turned around on some street or another without realizing it, that I eventually discovered I was closer to the beach than the campus, and had been going the opposite way of home for nearly an hour.
That’s where I found the used book store.
It was one of those tiny holes in the wall that have almost faded out of time in the era of Kindles and book superstores. This was the nineties, so these kinds of places had only just begun seeing the first of the Visigoths coming over the hill in the form of bookstore "superstores" like Barnes and Noble and Borders. Back then they had a list of reasons why customers would never like those big book stores (just like today they have a list of reasons why customers would never like e-readers).
Even then–back before the superstores crushed the little guys–you could tell this wasn’t a shop someone took seriously as a way to make money. This was someone’s beach and margarita dream of retirement. Not one other soul entered that store in the two hours I was there.
It would be nearly 15 years later before I saw the British comedy Black Books, but the way Bernard runs the bookshop (yet hates customers) in that show instantly reminded me of that place I found while lost in Santa Monica.
It must have violated a hundred fire codes. Book stacks towered everywhere on shelves and off. Where one could see that once—years before—the shelves had been “a little too close to each other” to maneuver, books had long since metastasized out of the shelves and into the aisles, stacked shoulder high or higher. A tiny little path ran between these stacks to the various areas like a mouse maze. A left and two rights got you to the history section, which was literally under current affairs. Digging through the strata of books was like a history lesson.
The guy that ran the place sat in an E-Z Boy recliner amidst further stacks of books, tucked behind the counter which I can only assume was actually a counter, as it was so covered in books that it may have been made ONLY of books and I’d have been none the wiser. He barely looked up over thick, round spectacles as I jangled an old fashioned bell coming in. The register was one of those push button ones that was mechanical instead of electrical and made the little tabs pop up with the numbers on them.
I didn’t get the feeling the register was a retro aesthetic choice.
He didn't push the recliner back into "chair position" when I came in. He barely even glanced over the top of the book he was reading. “Comic books?” he asked pointing to his left. I shook my head with a bit of vigor and Spock-arched eyebrow, and damned if I didn’t notice the tiniest of smiles and nod that reminded me of the proud sensei in a martial art movie who didn’t want his pupil to get a big head.
I didn’t have work that night, so I must have dug around in the tunnels of books for hours. This was back when I had pocket money and before Amazon’s instant gratification THROUGH the Kindle, so I came back with a stack of books to buy half as tall as me. The whole haul was less than thirty dollars.
But there was one book…
When I found it, I swear to you, I was on hands and knees and balancing slightly to get at the “Books on Writing" section. It had a strange sort of cover for a paperback—more like a soft cover—laminated plastic with swirly maroon and vermillion, and the simple title jumped out at me.
Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande.
I’d love to tell you that it just looked interesting with its swirly cover, so I took it back as part of a big stack, paid for it, and the guy, when he realized that I was there to do more than just raid the vintage Playboy issues, helped me dig out a few other books on writing and comparative religion (to match another of my finds). “You’ll like that book,” he said, knowingly pointing to Brande as he rung it up. “I don’t see a price sticker on it though, so why don’t I just charge you a dollar for it.”
One dollar for the best book I would ever read about writing. One dollar for something I value at least as much as my $35,000, four-year education.
I’d like to tell you that’s how it went. But this is how it REALLY happened…
You know that soundtrack for Lord of the Rings when they still think Lothlorien is a creepy forest. Even though that music hadn’t been written yet, that started playing when the light of my spelunking helmet hit it.
Yep. It was totally like that, except there was also that multiple-voice whispering that you see in movies where you can’t really make out the words, like happens when a character starts to reach for something that’s really powerful.
I touched the spine and felt something like electric current. The hairs on my arm stood at attention, and my heart raced. Over the whispers I heard one whisper saying something about ultimate power, and another seductively spoke my name. I slowly gauged its weight and sifted sand out of a burlap sack. Then with one swift move, I grabbed it and replaced it with the bag of sand.
“My…precious…”I whispered.
Exactly. Like. That.
Well…I mean, I’m leaving out the part with the boulder and the glowing, yet somehow dark, eye that kept saying it saw me.
This is the best book about becoming a writer I have ever read—hands down and with none even approaching its equal. If you wanted to be a writer but only had fifteen dollars to spend, for all of time, on your writing education, I would direct you to this book without a moment’s hesitation. Not a year goes by—not one year—that I don’t read it from cover to cover and discover some gem of wisdom I somehow missed before. It is no exaggeration to say that I haven’t had writer’s block even once in ten years because of THIS one book, nor ever waited longer than few minutes upon sitting down for the words to come.
There are two remarkable things about Becoming A Writer.
First, it is not a book about writing—not even a little. You won’t find a drop of ink spilled about characterization or plot or setting or even grammar. This is a book about becoming a writer. And Brande takes pains to explain the difference:
"Most of the methods of training the conscious side of the writer-the craftsman and the critic in him- are actually hostile to the good of the artist's side; and the converse of this proposition is likewise true. But it is possible to train both sides of the character to work in harmony, and the first step in that education is to consider that you must teach yourself not as though you were one person, but two."
Brande goes on to discuss at length how different it is to be a writer than to know how to write. Since she feels there are plenty of books on the latter and a desperate need for books on the former she tears into the bit she finds lacking. Let the craft mongers prattle on.
Skill in writing will do nothing to help writers who can only produce under deadline or one story every year or two. The ability to write well, even the understanding of literary elements of fiction, will not tap the floodgates of creativity. In fact, many of these skills—absolutely valuable once one IS a writer—are useless if the creativity doesn’t flow.
In many ways I am thankful that I found Brande and worked with her for years before getting a degree in Creative Writing. I sort of had the hard part of writing out of the way by the time I started worrying about craft. All I needed to do was just go learn how to actually write without sucking. (Still working on that one.) But I saw most of my fellow students (almost all in their teens or early twenties) struggling greatly with writer’s block or creative flow. They recycled stories over and over for various classes sometimes bringing the same story into half a dozen classes over the course of four semesters. Many of them outright admitted that they hadn’t written anything (except when they had to) since high school.
Of course they were still all destined to be the next Stephen King. Of course....
As much of a “jump” as I sometimes lament my peers have on me by graduating at 21 or 22 instead of their mid-thirties like me, in many ways I was ahead of the game by having first learned to be a writer and then to write. Often discussion groups topics were some level or another of my fellow classmates commiserating on how “impossible” it was to really actually write every day (“especially for, like…ya know…two or three hours. Who can, like, ya know…really even do that?”).
Some of my PROFESSORS even admitted to not being able to sit down and write every day, but only when “the mood struck them,” which might be a month or more between. And to make matters worse we often had guest authors that were one shot wonders and admitted not writing much since they produced their one hit.
It didn’t take me long to realize that writing fluidly was not in the skill sets that were being taught amidst the lit heavy major’s focus on elements of craft, the incredible importance of narrative voice, and creative reading. Brande nails these problems between writing well and BEING a writer right in her first chapter and goes on from there to give you the equivalent of a cross fit routine with weight training to help combat it, so that you can open the sliding sci-fi ship doors driving a yellow hydraulic load lifter towards the alien queen of your excuses and say “Get away from her you bitch!”
Metaphorically speaking. I guess “Newt” is your creativity...um...or something.
You know that metaphor was a lot cooler in my head.
The other thing that sets this apart is that Brande will not be coddling you. This is not a new-age, modern-day, feel-good book about how great it is to be a creative bohemian artist or Clam Chowder for the Writer’s Soul. This is Sun Tzu’s Art of War and the enemy is your justifications for why you can’t.
It is a how to guide for beating your muse into submission so that it’s working for YOU and not the other way around. Brande will not have you close your eyes and think of your totem animal eating berries with you in a tranquil sylvan glade. She’s going to put you to work. Hard work. Work that will, at times, make you question your ability (and even your inclination) to be a writer. Her exercises are not easy but they are effective in taming your muse, tapping your creative flow, and hacking your way through the thicket of your own psyche’s subterfuge.
Becoming a Writer is old enough to be seriously anachronistic—I swear it suggests you might even try your morning writing on the “new typewriters” that are all the rage. However, its messages are timeless, and as applicable today on the cusp of voice transcribing software as they were when Brande wrote them in the 30’s. Done with sincere application, her suggestions can develop the kind of habits that put the flip for the creative switch directly into your conscious mind. And such a skill seems to be truly elusive to almost every modern book on writing (Stephen King’s would be a notable exception) and writing program, which all seem to peak out in their profundity of creative habits at “Keep a Journal” and “Don’t give up, kay?”
I will keep coming back to this book and its wisdom time and time again here on this blog, but for now it’s enough to understand why I consider the craft OF writing and BEING a writer to be such very different ideas.
And the grand irony is THIS: Becoming a Writer is what most people want to learn when they pony up gobs and gobs of money for writing classes and spend half their discretionary income on writing books. They are often looking simply for the kick in their creativity’s ass that will help them combat the taunting blank page. Sitting down and not drawing a blank is not an academic skill or something you can read one last book to “get”—it comes from discipline, and Brande will show you how to cultivate that discipline. That is the elusive X factor that so many search for like The Holy Grail of writing. This book—right here—is what so many want. They don’t realize that they don’t really want to know how to write. They want to know how to become writers.
There is one caveat to my story of the book that is absolutely true and not at all artistic license. I never found that little bookstore again, no matter how hard I looked.
I tried to retrace my steps a dozen times. I swore once I was standing on the right street. Everything was exactly as I remembered it that day—the sun against the Pacific, the smell of salt in the air and the cry of gulls. The spot was flanked by a new age soap and candle shop and a jewelry store, just like I remember. But in the place where I absolutely SWORE the bookstore had been was just this Mediterranean deli.
"Was there ever a book store here?" I asked the hairy armed owner. "Like a used book store?"
"Yeah," he said nodding. "Like twenty-two years ago. That's what was here before I moved in."
I felt my spine turn to ice.
I know. I know. It must have been a different street. Just a coincidence. Some rational explanation. I don't believe in that sort of thing either. And yet...something about that day has never failed to inspire me that the universe might have a few tricks left up her sleeve for those who simply refuse to let go their sense of wonder.
[Remember, keep sending in your questions to chris.brecheen@gmail.com with the subject line "W.A.W. Mailbox" and I will answer them each Thursday as long as I have enough to do. I will use your first name ONLY unless you tell me explicitly that you'd like me to use your full name or you would prefer to remain anonymous. My comment policy also may mean one of your comments ends up in the mailbox. And reword the greatest author in the English language to write a question to a sixteenth rate blog at your own peril.]
Mark asks:
To outline or not to outline, that is the question. Whether tis nobler in the plot to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous spontaneity. Or to take arms against a sea of characters. And by opposing, end them. I really like to outline what I'm going to write, and a lot of writers in my group swear by it. But I've noticed that many writers who I love seem to advise against it. Help me Obi-Chris Kenobi. You're my only hope. By which I mean, I might actually get an answer from writing to you, and Cory Doctorow just won't get back to me!
My reply:
Maybe you should leave the jokes to me, Mark.
Around here, the Shakespeare quips more along the line of taking Sonnet 23 to see The Book of Mormon while Unsupportive Girlfriend and I order a pizza and watch The West Wing reruns on Netflix. That or I make some crude references to the beast with three backs (See what I did there?) in an effort to seem "edgy."
I do like the Star Wars reference though. I can probably work with that....
So my first disclaimer in answering something like this is always to do what works. Always. Whenever we get into a "right way to write" kind of question, I'm probably not going to end up taking a side so much as trying to explain the sides because that shit is like biting on tinfoil to me. Elitist assholish tinfoil.
Actually, that's not true. My really really first disclaimer should be that this is about fiction. If you are doing expository writing, outlining is one of the single most useful techniques you can use to organize your thoughts. If you want to turn in the worst abortion of an essay you possibly could, don't outline it at all (even mentally) before you sit down to write it. In fact, the success of outlining in the kind of writing most people are doing for the first 12-16 years of their writing career may be one of the reasons it is so popular when those people shift to fiction.
But my SECOND disclaimer is that you should always do what works for you. If outlining works for you, fuck everyone else right in the ear. Hard. Like grudge sex. Ear grudge sex. And if it brings you joy and contentment to outline, that's all that really matters.
That said, let me see if I can untangle this raging debate that threatens to tear our peaceful community asunder and shed some light on why so many established authors eschew outlining, and so many would-be writers swear by it so fucking hard. (And why a few [but not many] of the verses are viced?)
Is tossing out your outline the one thing that is holding you back from greatness? Money? Fame? Groupies? Groupie threesomes? Groupie foursomes? Groupie five--
Uh....anyway...
As usual, my advice in issues like this isn't to just pony up my personal opinion, say that everyone else is a mountain of mentally deficient pimple squeezings, remind you to tip your cocktail waitress, and then drop the microphone and spread my arms triumphantly as the feedback blows out everyone's eardrums.
Rather, I try to listen to who is saying what and why.
You are right to notice that many authors don't outline--at least not very much. Andre Dubois III says it's the worst thing you can do. Harlin says writing should be driving in the fog (I wonder if he knew about Mapquest). Stephen King discourages it. Murakami doesn't even know what the fuck is going to happen and he's probably going to win a Nobel prize for literature. This is because modern lit tends to be more focused on character. I don't just mean the literature genre either. Even in science fiction, westerns and mysteries, there is much more attention paid to the character than there has been. (Back in the day, the mystery was the story--now you need an interesting detective like Monk or House to solve it.) The characters should be driving the plot, and if you have already decided what is going to happen, very often it can feel like railroading to put your characters into that position. If your horror heroine tells you there's no fucking way she's going to check and see what that noise was, it is difficult to push her to do so, and if you've ever thought the characters were being really foolish in a horror movie, this is exactly what I'm talking about. If you already know what everyone is going to do, there's no character development. Your characters are just puppets in your Kabuki Theater. Modern readers don't like that.
The Greeks loved it! Modern readers...not so much.
However, certain KINDS of writing practically require outlining. Any kind of television screenwriting will need to be tightly scripted to fit into a time slot. Thrillers, complex plots, and mysteries are often sludgy dribble with deus ex machina endings that give new meaning to "epically stupid" if they aren't outlined well before being written. John Grisham spends more time outlining than writing (~cough~ it shows ~cough~). Robert Ludlum does hundred page outlines or more. But these writers are also writing the sorts of things that need to be very tightly plotted.
And I will warn you up front, this type of writing is seen as "less literary" precisely because it does favor plot over character. So don't come crying to Uncle Chris that you weren't informed how your Legal Spy Thriller with the cardboard character who you might as well have described as "The role of this guy will be played by Tom Cruise," is not helping your bid for Nobel laureate.
Just sayin....
The problem is, a lot of outlining tends to come from an impetus not to write.
Wait. Hang on. Put down that pitchfork. Don't light that torch.
Before everyone gets REALLY pissed, let me qualify that. I don't think everyone who outlines is doing it in order to avoid writing.
Those people exist, certainly. Let's not play happy make believe world where talking cat people have rainbow weapons and fight for the rights of kids to use their imagination. People who would rather outline than write are not exactly tough to find. Walk into any coffe shop in the continental U.S. and you can probably find no less than three of them sitting around outlining because they're not "quite ready" to start writing. The problem is, they're never quite ready. They don't ever get around to actually writing. In the end they have these incredibly intricate outlines, but no actual words on a page. Oh, and they have coffee.
Believe me when I tell you that John Grisham doesn't have this problem. When he's done outlining, he writes a fucking book.
But finding poseurs is easy-peasy-hope-you're-sleazy. They sit around the gym talking arguing about whether it's better to do cardio or weights first but never get around to working up a sweat. They sit around drama departments and argue about method acting vs natural acting but never end up going to auditions. And they sit around art stores and argue about the merits and flaws of oils vs acrylics but never seem to actually do much painting. So what happens if we forget about these folk? What about well-intentioned writers who outline?
Again, do what works, but let me make sure I tell you about this other pitfall before I leave you to your own devices....
If I had to pick one way, Mark, in which successful, accomplished writers differ from dreamers it would be this: they respect the process.
Accomplished writers know they have to work on a consistent routine--probably daily. They know it's going to take a lot of work instead of being genius right away. They know the first draft of anything is shit. They know they're going to rewrite. They know that things are going to get messy. They know they might take out scenes, even characters. They know there's going to be a moment where they realize that their entire first half isn't working and that they're going to have to have a good cry and redo the whole damned thing. They know that what they end up with is not going to look like what they started out to create. They know making mistakes is part of the process, and art is knowing which ones to keep. They know that if we could just sit down and write a good book, they wouldn't be so impressive.
Young writers hear stuff like this and they think: "Not MY story." They don't like these ideas. They don't want something to change from their initial vision. They don't want to have to take out a whole character or scene. What they want to do is get it right on the first shot.
Outlining can be a little bit like the opposite of respecting the process. It can be--I'm not saying it always is, but it can be--a way in which a writer refuses to give up that control. It works against the process. It's like deciding ahead of time that the process won't count for this story because this story is going to go exactly how the writer wants. Many outliners seem to hope that with enough preparation, the first draft won't be shit--it will be exactly right. If you just think about it enough, it will all come into place. That's not how art works.
You have to give up control.
Then again, for some people outlining is just their "zeroth" draft. That's the way they write with broad brush strokes first. As long as they're willing to break out of the mold of what they have done and change things, there's nothing really wrong with it. As long as an outline isn't exerting control, it may not be so detrimental.
My last point--take a look at this great bit from Flavorwire where they reveal the outlines of several famous authors. Obviously some authors outline or this would be a pretty fucking stupid article, right?
Right.
However, notice something about these outlines: with a couple of exceptions, notice how small they are. Most of these are one page--a one page outline for a whole book. Notice how what is being outlined are things like timelines and a handful of plot bombs, not the entire arc of every character or what they will do in reaction to those plot bombs. So if you're plotting a story with lots of plot, you might need an extensive outline, but if your characters are going to drive the plot, you may want to meet them and see what they want to do before you railroad them.
Order of the Phoenix is an 870 page book that is largely character based; Rowling used a single sheet of notebook paper to outline it. A single sheet for 870 pages to outline the best selling novel of all time. Let that sink in.
There are some pretty solid reasons to outline and some pretty solid reasons not to. If your characters feel two dimensional, if you are trying to write character based fiction, or if you are outlining to avoid the mess that will become your draft, you should toss the outline and see what happens. If your stories wander off their main plot, you are writing tight plot based fiction (like thrillers or mysteries), or you find that even after a shockingly brutal bout of self-honesty you can say that you are not using outlining as a way to not write, but you still enjoy outlining, then you should probably be outlining. To the best of my knowledge, you are no more or less likely to form the beast with three groupie backs if you choose one or the other.
And that's all that really matters. Well, that and all the meaningful artsy soul enrichment stuff.
I hate to end without a definitive answer, but you don't really get that Peter North caliber money shot unless you ask questions like: "Should I read?" or "Is it good to write every day?"
Pay attention to why you like outlining. You should consider the kind of writing that you are doing and that you want to be doing. (You PERSONALLY, Mark, may want to consider the fact that the writers you love tend to avoid outlining.) Most importantly, you should check yourself to make sure outlining is not something you're doing instead of writing, and then you should do what works for you.
Oh, and then you should kick anyone in the nuts and/or punch them in the tit if they try to tell you that you're doing it wrong. Cause fuck them, that's why.
Personally I don't outline, but I also have a very good memory for the general landscape of a few plot points and the sheer enjoyment of finding out how my characters are going to handle themselves beyond that. I write as much to discover what is going to happen and delight myself as anything else. In a way I'm reading my own work. Some of my most hackneyed moments have come from trying to force my characters to do something they didn't want to do to get the plot to do what I wanted.
Sorry to be all Obi Chris Kenobi on you, Mark, but you're going to find that many of the outlines we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.
Also, do me a solid (get it?) and hook me up with a translucent glowing blue cutie, will ya?
Preferably two.
But before you file this under D for "duh," know that I'm talking about a different kind of writing. Free writing. (Which despite it's name is not what most writers do before they sell their first novel. ~rimshot~)
If you're ever trying to generate ideas for something--a new story or a new character or where the plot of something might go next or if you're ever stuck (especially if you feel like you have writer's block) the worst thing you could do is give in and not write. Even trying to concentrate and focus on a solution isn't always the best idea. Fortunately you have one of the absolutely best strategies for stimulating creative thinking and removing creative block at your beck and call: free writing.
And the best part is, as a writer, you're already "hella" good at it.
Though free writing in the morning is one of the hallmarks of Dorothea Brande's writing process tips to help a writer tap into their creativity every time they sit down, it is also superb for getting a writer past more temporary obstacles in their writing like characters struggling against them, plots they can't resolve, or just problems they're having with the language getting from where they are to where they know they want to go.
I know what you're thinking. Free writing? Seriously? I know the phrase "free writing" probably gives you flashbacks of Mrs. Pertenski's class and of sitting there wondering what the holy fucking hell you were supposed to keep writing about "no matter what" for ten minutes. But now that you're not in school and thinking about book reports, it's time to dust that tool back off and give it a place of esteem in your process toolbox.
This shit rocks the party that rocks the party.
Why it works. The human brain's processing speed for imagery and abstractions isn't quite measurable yet, but we have a pretty good idea of how quickly we can think when we're using language. That is when we are thinking "in words" we know how fast that happens, and it's right around 500 words per minute on average. The way they know that is because speaking speed is about 150-175 words per minute and translators (especially sign language translators) work right at the very edge of that ability. They have to process that information three times over (listen, translate, speak) and it's JUST about the limit of human ability. If you've ever had a situation where you used a sign language translator, you probably actually had two of them because it can brain fry one person to keep that pace up for more than about fifteen to twenty minutes.
(Keep that 15-20 minutes in mind. That'll show up again.)
Typing speeds are probably less than 50-60 words per minute unless you are quite good, and are certainly less than 100 wpm unless you are phenomenal. If you write by hand, you'll go even slower than that. This means that when you write, you activate all your linguistic centers and start processing about five to ten times faster than you are using them. And if you focus on writing to the exclusion of anything else, you will have that entire 90% focused on what you're writing about. This is why it works. It's like using a high speed modem to surf the net but saying "any bandwidth you have left over, go ahead and download Season 3 of Community." Except Community is like...your blockage, and you're not downloading it so much as...um....getting rid of....you know what, that's a bad metaphor.
How it works. Writing is a recursive process. As you write about something, you think about it. As you think about it, you have more to write. The fact that you are writing acts as an anchor to the subject. This is why free writing is often better than just thinking about something. When you just think about a topic, your mind can just float away. When you're writing about it, it remains fettered. It can't get too far out in front of you or go think about what you want to have for lunch. That means that 80-90% of your processing power is working on what you're writing about, but not the actual writing itself. It is sort of chewing around the edges and playing in the margins of your thoughts. This is why so often AS you are writing, ideas will pop into your head or you will have a last minute thought about how to reword something to be better. It isn't magic. It's the fact that most of your brain is going over what you're writing about seven, eight, maybe even nine times before you actually write it (or possibly thinking about what you just wrote). Your brain is an excited dog on a non-leash hike. The dog runs out ahead of their human, but it races back every couple of minutes to check in. Then it runs off again to sniff everything, roll around, run after squirrels, and bark at other dogs. That running around out ahead of you is pure creativity in motion.
That's why free writing is so effective. It forces you onto a topic, but then unleashes your creative power on that topic in a recursion loop.
How to do it. 1- Pick a topic- Free writing about any topic in the world can be difficult. Some ideas are just too big. In fact, the more specific a free writing topic is, the more likely you are to actually be able to write about it and generate creative ideas. During Brande's morning writing, it is better to write whatever comes into your head because that's what morning writing is about, but if you're dealing with an obstacle or just trying to jump start your creativity to a story, pick a topic. Anita King has a blog primarily dedicated to free writing prompts that I recommend if you are at a general loss for creative ammunition. If you have a specific problem, it's best write about that.
2-Write. And don't stop- Even if you have to start by writing "I cannot think of what to write about this but I am going to do a free writing exercise anyway..." write something. If it's a topic for general creativity, try restating the topic as objectively as you can to help get you going. If it's a problem with an existing piece of writing, try describing the problem you're having in detail. Even if you are simply uncomfortable about trying free writing, write about that. I have never met a single person who was not writing fluidly within a couple of minutes if they put pen to paper and wrote something in good faith. No matter what, you don't want to give your brain an "out." You want it to keep focused on what you are thinking about for the entire time. This part is UNLIKE regular writing, and must be done with focus if free writing is to work. KEEP WRITING. Don't stare into space thinking of a word or pause to consider your next point. Barrel through, even if you have to use less effective turns of phrase or ramble a bit. Don't worry about spelling or grammar. Don't worry about the prose. Just keep writing. Imagine Samuel Jackson is reading you a poem called "Keep the fuck writing, motherfucker."
3- Steer, but don't railroad- You may find yourself drifting off topic. You might want to explore a sub idea or just completely go off on a tangent. If you can easily get yourself back on topic, that's fine, but don't force it. If you run out of things to say on the topic at hand and wander off or if your brain really wants to write about something else let it. There may be a reason. Your brain has been thinking about this multiple times before you showed up, so give it some cred. Think about this interaction like a conversation (which it sort of is--a conversation with your brain) if you start out talking about zombies and the conversation moves away, you want to ease it back towards zombies with smooth phrases like ("Yeah, that's kind of like what I was saying about the zombies earlier,) and not like a sledgehammer ("Yeah, so back to what I was saying about zombies). Think about how good conversations move and flow organically even if they return to a main idea. Trying to force a return to a retired subject tends to make the conversation shut down or at least get really stilted. If your brain is insisting on going off topic, it can reveal some of the most unique and creative solutions to your troubles because it will have an idea before you do consciously. So let it frolic if it wants to.
4- Limit yourself to 15-20 minutes- Your brain can only process this quickly for a few minutes at a time. You are not writing in the traditional sense at this speed. Writing involves thinking of words, rereading things, bursts and plods and is a lot more like an obstacle course. Freewriting is an all out linguistic sprint. The speed of free writing causes your brain to work at the upper end of its linguistic processing ability which is why you can get creativity out of it. (That's why it's important not to slow down or stop.) Much like the translators above, you're going to need a break after you've pushed it for so long. You probably won't really even need a timer because you'll find that you come to a point where you can't think of anything more to write. Your brain just feels kind of cooked. (Don't worry, it'll only take a bit of a rest to get your neurotransmitters back.) If you have a lot of practice with Brande's morning you might be able to do this long enough that setting a timer is a wise idea, but for most people it's naturally around 15-20 minutes, especially if they are really trying to write as fast as they can.
5- Discriminate- This isn't going to produce As I Lay Dying in polished form, and it's really important that you understand this. In a good free writing session, you might have one, maybe two good ideas that are like unpolished stones. You will also have a lot of crap. It's really important to look through your free writing with a pretty discriminating filter, it's really important to let go of the stuff that was just fluff or filler, and it's also really important to be willing to polish those rough ideas before they go into anything. Not everything you write is destined to be published. One of the reasons that unrevised NaNo manuscripts can be so rough is because they were written this fast and are filled with a lot of dross and unpolished nuggets.
Last thought- Free writing is a great creative tap, but no tool in your toolbox is panacea. You won't always get something great out of every session. If you're dealing with a particularly troublesome block, you may need multiple sessions to get a good idea going. But the process of thinking ABOUT a problem at a deliberately slow pace (the pace of writing) but not allowing your mind to wonder too far from the topic is one of the most creative ways to think. Free writing forces both the slower paced thoughts and the topic tether that promotes maximum creativity, and should eventually yield fruit.
#6 is obviously groupie threesomes. Also, clearly this is a metaphor for creativity,
and not just a licence free image for the word
"process."
Generally, there is a great deal of confusion about the difference between process and craft. A lot of people who enjoy writing and have a refined process, are not particularly good at the actual craft (like me) and a lot of people who are quite adept at craft struggle with the process for their entire lives. Many excellent writers have written only a few stories, and cannot motivate themselves to write more. Or they write brilliantly, but only when under deadline for a class.
Very often the trouble here is that writing well is only half the story and usually only a small portion of the difficulty most writers struggle with. If the technical skill of writing is not married to a good sense of process, then what you end up with a very good writer who does not produce very much. Indeed, most writers have more difficulty just sitting to write than they ever do with the prose itself. (Although, unfortunately, most writers focus on learning the technical skill almost the exclusion of working on their process.)
While concrete imagery, dialogue, or characterization are craft elements, how many times to draft, when to write, how important research and how to sit down and produce every day is process. These are articles about the process of writing and whatever insight I have gleaned about it.
If you're enjoying this blog, and would like to see more articles like this one, the writer is a guy with a rent and insurance to pay who would love to spend more time writing. Please consider contributing to My Patreon. As little as $12 a year (only one single less-than-a-cup-of-coffee dollar a month) will get you in on backchannel conversations, patron-only polls, and my special ear when I ask for advice about future projects or blog changes.
You mean when you're not spraying yourself with pepper spray, getting your finger stuck in a drain for 45 minutes, or jumping full speed off a stairwell with a low ceiling and hitting your head so hard that you--and I'm quoting your friend now--flipped all the way over and landed on your stomach?
Shut up evil italics voice. All those things had...mitigating circumstances. Anyway, this is my story.
Once upon a time a slightly younger version of me was out with a group of my science and math friends and an argument broke out about whether a plane could take off from a conveyor belt. There was no way I could follow the science, so I just watched them talking past each other for about a half an hour. Things got heated, then superheated, and then one of my friends turned into plasma and melted through the floor.
I knew we had turned a corner from lively debate into something much worse when the nutritionist called the PhD in astrophysics a "fucking tard."
Well, the physicist looked at me and said, "Okay, since we're not listening to the physics doctorate about about physics anymore, what does the English major think?"
"I think there would be a conveyor belt airport if it were more than theoretically possible," I said.
My friends got a laugh out of that (largely, I think, related to the number of empty beer bottles on the table between us), and we went on with our evening with no further talk of planes or conveyor belts.
But seriously that was all I had to give. I understand the problem is one of perspective and there are considerations like the ability of the wheels to go twice as fast as the plane and the length of the conveyor belt or something. A plane still needs air under the wings for lift or some shit,so it won't just lift off from a fixed position, but it could get the speed it needs in a really short space by rocketing off the end of the belt. And something about two trains leaving from different cities or something. Anyway, I'm STILL not really clear on the science, but the point is both are kind of right and both kind of missing something, but in the end, even if it might be possible, it isn't really practical.
Actually I can take off on three joggers' treadmills if you position them right.
Fuck you. I'm a dragon. ..plane. A dragonplane.
Can we expect this diarrhea of the word processor to achieve some vague sort of point any time prior the Aztec apocalypse?
Shut up evil italics voice. I'm getting there.
I've had similar conversations about exercise. Being a on again/off again gym rat, people sometimes ask me how they should be working out. If you've ever had a friend who worked out for more than a month or picked up a fitness magazine or--God forbid, you poor, poor person--asked on a social media for some advice about losing weight, you are probably aware that there are a few...uh....competing theories out there about how best to lose weight.
Not only is every Pilates/Crossfit fad workout going to have its legions of born again fanatics who shamble up to you and desperately want to eat your brains, but just the whole idea of what you should be doing is in contention. Should you focus on cardio or on resistance training. Legions of weight lifters have things to say about muscles burning calories, metabolism, and how pointless long sessions of cardio can be. (They point to all those obese marathoners as evidence. Oh wait...) The health industry and another whole legion focus on cardio and burning calories. Cardio before weights. Cardio after weights. Nutritionists, doctors, physiologists, body builders, and even olympic trainers are all doing their best to recreate the Battle of Stirling. William Walace will be played by Ryan Gosling. ("Hey Girl.... They may take our LIVES! But they'll never take our....knowledge that the fashion industry is making billions promoting low self esteem.")
The third machine from the left is the one true way. All the others less than.
And a lot of people asked me, "Chris, what is the best work out?" And my reply to that is always the same. "The one you'll keep doing."
No one asks you for advice on anything body related...except maybe how to eat a lot of pizza.
Please shut up. This was back before my free time became so precious--back in the before era of the long, long ago. Back when we had reached the tipping point of the statistical probability that someone who said they hated Black Eyed Peas was not talking about southern food.
I don't care if it's playing squash with a friend, joining a derby league, reading a book while you jog for two hours, lifting weights with your buddy, or doing a Navy Seal workout routine, if you keep doing it, it will work. Unless you're bringing a bag of chips and just sitting still on a stationary bike to watch the free gym TV, if you're going to the gym three or four times a week, you will probably get results. So if something is fun and you like it, do that. If something is boring and you hate doing it, you'll probably start to find excuses pretty quickly.
I hate resistance training, and if I give that emphasis in a workout, it's not long before I start seeing working out as a chore that I'd rather skip. Excuses start rolling in, and then I'm gone. I also get bored easily doing cardio by itself. But if I bring a book, I'm happy for hours. I can burn 1500-2000 calories and not even notice. A few weeks of that three or four times a week, and you betcha I can tell a difference. So go ahead and tell me I should be lifting weights. Tell me ALL. YOU. WANT.
Still, my work outs aren't really the point of this article.
You should tell them about The Megathalon. ~snerk~
Shut up! It was...nothing. Forget about it.
A few months ago I wrote about how a writer really needs to find the time that works for them. The magic of creation is a personal thing, and someone else's routine isn't for you. You might do morning writing for a few months because you're employing the techniques of Dorothea Brande, but once you're writing smoothly every time you sit down, you probably are going to notice a time that works best for you.
But this really goes for anything.
It's not just time that is subject to this. All aspects of writing should be like this. Do what works. Do whatever works. And most importantly of all: do whatever works for you!
I once saw a person writing into a loose leaf folder with a really fancy fountain pen. "This is what X did," she said. I can't even remember who X was anymore: Bronte or Austin or Plath or someone. I asked her if that helped, and she said she didn't like it. She much preferred to write on a word processor because she could type much faster and keep up with her brain a lot better. Plus she could go on longer before her hand did it. Why on earth, I asked her, would you keep doing that then? "Because X did it."
Oh.
Standing on formality can sometimes be very, very ineffective though....
Some martial arts you can go learn at the local school are hundreds of years old. Many come with traditions of culture and etiquette and formality. You can't even take a class before buying a two hundred and fifty dollar uniform. You have to do a special bow when you come in. You treat the Sifu/Sansei with deference even though we don't treat any other teachers that way in the U.S. You don't learn a punch until you spend hours working on stances.
But many other martial arts are intensely pragmatic. They have no uniform; you just come in your sweats and a t-shirt. They have no deep stances; they just tell you not to stand straight on and if you forget the teacher pops you and you sure as hell don't forget again. You call the teacher by their first name. They aren't going to stand on ceremony. They aren't worried about stealing anything from any other form that might be effective. They are hybrids of five or six forms taking what works and leaving the rest like the raccoons of the martial art world--wily little thieves that get into everything and respect nothing. They care what works.
Jeet Kun Do is so non-formalized and focused on adaptation and improvisation that Bruce Lee kind of didn't want people to call it a form. Keysi incorporates half a dozen styles into something that is absurdly messy and looks kind of silly but horrifically brutal, and Krav Maga, of course, is the national Israeli martial art that trains people to kill fifty guys in a room using toenail clippers and the ripped off limbs of the dead and is SO fucking horrific that practitioners often report not using it in fights where no one pulled a knife, crowbar, or AK-47 because the stakes weren't high enough.
These martial arts focus on what works. They won't say that a straight on punch isn't in keeping with the balance of energies and circular motions of the yin and yang. They will say "try to hit the bridge of the nose so you shatter cartilage fragments into the asshole's brain!"
So...today we're going to do Writing About Martial Arts? Or just Writing About Nothing?
Shut up.
This pragmatic approach is what you want in writing. You want cartilage fragments in the brain! Metaphorical cartilage, of course. In the metaphorical brain. But metaphorically speaking...just like that. Don't get up at four if you don't like getting up early. Don't sit at a desk if you need to move. Don't use a fountain pen like James Joyce did if you prefer typing. You want to focus on what works. You want to focus on what gives you results. And you want to leave the formality and the ceremony of others behind.
Unless of course that formality is what's working for you....then you want it. But make sure it's your formal structure. If you do your best writing in the dead of night after you tuck the kids in and have a wonderful bowel movement, more power to ya. You can even bow to your fountain pen if you want.
I have conversations about my stories with a wooden dragon I got six years ago from Chinatown; I'm the last person with any right to take someone's affectations away.
My "Morning Writing-Fu" has destroyed your "After Work Fu."
There can be only one.....
.....way to write!
So what you're saying is that spending 3 hours a day on Facebook works for you? Also, that you can't fight?
Please shut up evil italics voice. I'm begging you. Please.
If the process of other artists gives you the springboard for ideas, that's wonderful, but don't be beholden to them. But when it comes to your art, do what works. Do whatever works. If you find writing at three in the morning while standing on your head works, do it. If you find writing two sentences every hour works, do it.
Be careful though!!
There are some general things that usually work. Really. Like writing every day. And only you really know (really) if something works better for you or if you're giving yourself permission to not work. A lot of people will say "that doesn't work for me" as an excuse not to put in any real effort--guess how their careers are coming along? But just don't be afraid to get under the hood and make any modifications that might help.
Artists need to be pragmatic. About time. About money. About creativity. About energy. About perspective. About everything they do, they can't afford to get caught up someone else's baggage and anyone else's bullshit.
So don't forget with any advice--even with MY advice, as sage and above reproach as it is--don't be afraid to toss it if it doesn't work.
As I mentioned before, I haven't had writer's block in fifteen years.
I also haven't had the slightest trouble sitting down to write when ever I want in over a decade. Morning. Night. Middle of the day. I can sit down and the words are there, waiting for me...like I'm Willard and they're my red-eyed friends.
Sort of....
This is not because I am, in any way, special. Professor X didn't try to recruit me when he heard I hadn't had writer's block. ("I'm forming a special team, and maybe you can write press releases for them...or something.") And when me and Peter Petrelli got paired up as Laser Tag teammates in the tri-county championship bout, he didn't walk away saying to his brother, "Nathan, it's amazing! I just don't get writer's block anymore!"
I'm just a normal dude. I learned to overcome writer's block. You can too. Not because I am yet another white, heterosexual, male from middle class America telling you that anyone can actualize their visualizations if they just prioritize their positivization or some shit. But just because creativity is a muscle and I know how to do "push ups."
I owe it all to Dorothea Brande, my number one posthumous peep--homey among homeys--who has written the single most useful book about writing that anyone could ever own: Becoming a Writer. I don't know a simpler way to put this: if you are serious about being a writer, read this book.
Read it a lot.
Today, I can sit down to a computer at any time of day and write quickly and fluidly for hours. Sometimes my brain doesn't cooperate about WHAT I'm writing and my gothic punk emofest characters end up having a food fight with the mashed potatoes and deciding to go to Disneyland for a funnel cake instead of cutting themselves, but at least I'm writing.
I also definitely have times where I write longer, better, and more creatively than others. But Becoming a Writer can help you bridge the gap between staring at a blank screen for four hours and at least writing something--even if it's not going to procure you any accolades or conclude in the acquisition of "hella scrill."
The basic premise of this book, in modern parlance would be best summarized as "Stop being your muse's butt-boy." And if they ever ask me to write the jacket for the next edition, that's exactly what I'm going to say.
"Do you go for weeks at a time without writing because you just aren't 'feeling it'? Have you written one good story, and can't seem to think of anything else? Have you written nine manuscripts in two years, but they're all basically the same book over and over again? Did you take a $30,000 dollar MFA because you can't make yourself write unless some professor tells you it's due next monday? Sound's like you're your muse's butt-boy. Buy this book and learn to turn the tables so that instead you become like the wonder twins--except, like, with powers that don't suck. Creativity is a muscle. This is your workout routine!"
So the first step of Brande's boot camp for becoming a writer is the incorporation of morning writing. Until you do that, your muse is just going to stand over you in bondage gear, holding a riding crop and shaking its head that you are not worthy of its pleasures. Once you start doing morning writing, you won't switch places in the power dynamic, but you will become more equal--you might link arms and together go jump the hilly brush.
Once a writer puts the morning writing into practice, they will find their creativity gushing as soon as they wake up. It'll be addictive. They'll wake up jonesing for it. They'll get cranky and irritable if they can't have it. They'll start making up excuses to people around them, and hiding it with increasingly transparent lies.
"Me? No...I'm not going to go write whatever comes to mind no matter how absurd or banal. Don't be ridiculous. Tabula Rasa? What's that...some kind of tower defense game? I want to check e-mail. And Facebook. And maybe play some Starcraft and...uh Minesweeper. And look at porn. Oh man...I'm totally going to look at porn. Just me and some crazy Asian cheerleader FMF porn! I'm not in any way going to just go write whatever comes into my head for the next thirty minutes to an hour. I mean...who the hell does that, right? Okaygottagobye!"
This is great. You can feel the creativity flowing within you. But it's not enough to feel it. Control! Control! You must learn control! Learn to write when want to you do, you must. (This is why Yoda doesn't use a lot of dependent clauses.)
Seriously Chris? Obi Wan in the last article. Now Yoda.
You do know writing isn't ACTUALLY The Force, right?
The next step is to control when it happens. This will give you the power to call on your muse when you want it. We can't always control when we write, and "it's not the right time" is an excuse. You can crutch on morning writing if you don't move on. Trust me! (No seriously....TRUST ME.) The voice of experience speaks to you now. Because even the best of us have dental appointments or loved ones on busses hijacked by penguins.
It takes 3 grown men to control how fucking creative I am!
Cause here's the thing about morning writing. It's a gushing flow, but it's not under your control. All you are is the conduit for whatever comes spewing out. Your fingers are just acting as the medium for all the flotsam in your addled morning brain. It's like a firehose spraying everywhere. You're still your muse's butt-boy, just in a different way. This is like the dog waking you up to go for a walk. If you've ever done an exercise routine at the same time everyday, you know what happens...you start to crave it at that time an feel lazy during others, and every fitness expert tells you to mix it up when that happens. Creativity is a muscle too. Time to mix it up.
The next step is to get control of the faucet. Or...to teach the dog to go when you walk them. Or to teach the muscle to work when and how you want it to. Or...whatever metaphor you prefer to describe having the words come to you naturally the minute you sit down...on YOUR schedule. Also, you need some level of control over what you write about. Being able to conjure forth words is awesome. But that ability has limited use when you blaze blindly within your soul only to write a "Fuck You" letter to all the Republicans who were mean to you on Facebook yesterday because you decided to "share" that Moveon.org meme. That's not so useful.
So here's what you do. You start to write for a half an hour every day, but you do it at random times during the day.
First of all, you stop doing your morning writing. Just go ahead and scratch your track marks for now, and let people think what they'll think. It might be easiest for you if you scheduled your first few floating half hour times for fairly early in the day.
Clear your schedule ahead of time. Make sure you'll be home and with access to your writing tools (whether you normally use longhand or a computer does not matter). Make sure nothing is going to interrupt you. Take some care with this because you will actually TRY to find times that won't actually work so that you can sabotage yourself.
Brande calls this half an hour of writing a "debt of honor." That's because she wrote Becoming A Writer about a hundred years ago. Today what we will call this is ONE OF THE HARDEST THINGS YOU WILL EVER FUCKING DO; I'M SO NOT KIDDING.
You will want to move that half hour SO bad. If you decided on 12-12:30 for a given day, you will think there's no reason not to do it from 12:15-12:45, or worse that you can just do it that night. You will find yourself finding a million things that come up and feel urgent RIGHT before your half hour comes due. You will find so many good, legitimate, wonderful reasons to not write at the allotted time.
In time you will call me.....master.
You can't fuck around with this. This is your brain trying not to work. This is what happens when creativity starts to feel like effort. This is why you can find a half a million web pages with people saying they don't want to write every day because then it starts to seem like an obligation or a job. (But let me tell you a little something about those obligation yahoos. Writing once a week for hours and hours at a stretch is an obligation. Writing every day...that's a habit. And habits don't burn people's flesh like holy water to a vampire the way that these "Don't make it a CHORE!" types act like it burns them.) Your muse is struggling like a stallion being broken and it has no trouble commandeering your brain's ability for rationalization to help it worm out of this task. Your excuses will be spectacular--they will impress even you.
Stay true! Don't let anything deter you. Ignore even a ringing phone unless you're expecting an important call. (Though, why did you pick a time you were expecting a call to schedule your half hour, hmmmmmmm?) Unless blood is fountaining out of your femoral artery or your kid is missing a limb (that was there earlier in the day), you sit down when you said you would, and you write for thirty minutes no matter how much it hurts. Your muse will kick. It will scream. It will act like you're trying to put it to bed at seven while there is a Disney cartoon special on NBC.
Be strong.
Kiddies, this step is so serious that Brande actually says to give up if you consistently can't make yourself do this half an hour. Your desire to write is not able to overcome your brain's games and your inherent desire not to write. Now I don't know if Brande gets to say that with any authority, but it's worth considering. If you can't even sit down and write during the half hour you picked the day before, maybe she's got a point that you don't really want to be a writer.
The next day, you pick a different half hour. Your brain starts its struggle all over again.
Move it all around. Obviously you can't do your half-hour while you're at work or asleep, but you could do it during those times on your day off. Do it early, late, midday. Do it when your favorite show is on. Later on, you can do it when you know you'll be tempted by distraction, just to show off how l33t you are. But no matter what, sit down and write for a half an hour.
Do this for a month or two.
You'll know when you're done. Might take three weeks. Might take four months. For most it's a month or two. But you'll know. Because suddenly...there won't be a fight about that time. Your muse won't struggle. It'll join you in knocking out some writing. You'll cut through your own bullshit like Bruce Willis with your katana of righteous discipline, sit down when you're supposed to without any excuses or attempts to postpone, and find words come easily and smoothly. Short of some asshole with four mechanical arms tossing a car at your head, nothing will break your concentration.
Now...you and your muse aren't struggling against each other ever time you sit down. Now, when you say: "Muse Powers Activate!" your muse says: "SHO-NUFF!"
Now you and your muse are equals instead of your muse saying each time you try to work: "Bitch please, you're sullying the pleasure of my art. Go get me a spiced pumpkin caramel macchiato. Skim milk. Two pumps. Light steam. And don't forget the cup holder you prat. I nearly burned my pinkie last time."
These two exercises--morning writing and the floating half--will clear away 95% of what most people call writer's block. You will write fluidly, whenever you want to. And if you do your level best to write at the same time every day, you should find that your creativity is there waiting for you and you can easily think of WHAT to write, eliminating the last 5%.
If you find yourself having trouble down the line, returning to these foundational exercises for a week or two will usually get you writing again. Your muse is like the fox in little prince; part of it wants to be tamed. You may slip, but it is not because your muse hears the call of the wild. It's usually because you haven't been exercising regularly like you should. I have at times discovered I'm starting to slump into difficulty, and gone back to morning writing and the floating half. Within a week or two, I'm back to being able to write when I want to.
I don't want to do the creative equivalent of The Gun Show here, but I have no trouble writing. I sputter when I'm starting, and then things take off, but I never sit down and stare at the screen, and I never peter out after two hours. The things that make me stop writing are usually hurting knuckles or eye strain. But look, I'm not trying to tell you how awesome I am. I've stared at my share of blank paper, and I couldn't always write anytime I wanted to. I'm not some freak like Marilynne Robinson with her "benevolent insomnia." (Seriously, if I meet her I'm going to go Sylar on her ass to get that ability.)
Wait. THAT is Marilynne Robinson????
She looks all nice and stuff. I can't go Sylar on HER.
Maybe I'll just ask if she does any breathing exercises or something.
The only reason I haven't had writer's block or trouble writing when I sit down to do so is because I have followed Brande's exercises. I am made up of the same spiral chords of DNA that anyone else is.
They work. I promise. Or if they don't, maybe you've figured out something important. But this isn't just a case of "They Work For Me." I don't know a writer worth their salt who doesn't echo many of the ideas over and over again. If you line up all the authors with multiple credits to their name and a successful life of writing and all the authors with no credits, long periods of writer's block, and perhaps a single book they can't seem to reproduce, you will notice that one of the most consistent things that differentiates them is how they view the importance of writing daily and getting control of their creative flow. All Brande has done is codify those observations into articulated insight and give us exercises that work to exercise that creative muscle, so that it's performing when we want it to, and not knocking us around with some muse version of restless leg syndrome.
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