I am thinking a lot about “process.” Not just the process of writing, but the process of accomplishing anything worthwhile that we dream of doing, whether it is our creative work, our business goals, or improving our health and our relationships. How do we craft a process that achieves results, yet still honors the many goals we may have to serve others or to take care of ourselves?
The responses to the recent survey sent out by the Village Writing School illustrates that this is the most common problem among writers. When asked to name their biggest challenge as a writer, there were so many responses like these:
- Setting up the time, having a scheduled routine for writing.
- Momentum—there seem to be spans of much getting ready to get ready.
- Keeping faith—continuing to submit despite more rejections vs. acceptances.
- Life—things interrupt and make it difficult to stay on task.
- Maintaining a regular writing practice.
- The whole thing becomes overwhelming, so I stop.
- Focus, sticking to good habits, productivity.
- Disciplining myself to making daily writing as basic to my day as making sure the kitchen sink is always shining.
- Getting started again.
- I can only seem to write two or three hours a day.
- Being in a quiet place with no interruptions so I can think and focus on what I want to write.
- Getting the work done.
- Sitting down and actually writing!
- I wish I had some sort of boot camp mentality to keep me writing on my own.
- Putting fire under my butt—motivating myself.
Of course, there were requests for workshops and events on writing craft, publishing, platform building. And those are easy enough to address. Because the elements of craft are the same for all of us, even though our styles may differ. The various paths to publishing are the same for all of us. And while we have options as to how we do it, building a platform is simply connecting authentically with one person at a time. I’m all over these kinds of topics. I’ve spent two days researching writers and instructors and emailing invitations to teach for the Village Writing School.
But “process.” That’s a horse of a different color. It may be as individual as our fingerprints. There is no right or wrong way to develop a writing habit. The only acid test is does good writing get done?
We want to be told specifically what to do. I am one of those people who follows the recipe like it is a scientific operation and a variation in the amount of salt will blow up the lab. I read all the directions that come with my appliances, even the ones that tell me not to stick my head in the oven. (Italians LOVE warnings.) We want a set of instructions that will make us into writers or make our other goals into accomplishments.
But really, maybe that makes it harder. Maybe all these books on how to develop a writing life just freeze us because we can’t do it that way. Maybe Stephen King can write all day. I can’t. I’m spent after three hours. Other writers say the same. This is the value of deep work. I’ve written 130,000 words in a year. Three hours at a time. And not every day. I’d like to write every day, but that’s an unrealistic goal unless you’ve got a staff and a security guard. Or put your study at the end of a high catwalk, like Hemingway did, that everyone else is afraid to cross.
Writers write all over the map and the clock face. Books are written on commuter trains, in bathtubs, in cars waiting for kids to get out of school, on phones in lines at the post office. Carolyn Chute hid in an old shed to write The Beans of Egypt, Maine. Maya Angelou kept a motel room rented for years.
Books are written over decades and in two weeks and everything in between. On computers, notebooks, and the backs of unused flyers.
Books are written because we want to write them. It is as simple as that.
We plot, we don’t plot, we half plot. We use Scrivener; we write in Word. We edit as we go or we fast draft. It all works for some of us.
Yes, the Village Writing School will offer a workshop on the writing process, but it will not be prescriptive. Instead, it will look at many techniques writers have used successfully to cajole, threaten, or bribe themselves to write, to get over that hump of the starting. Because that’s what’s hard: the starting up.
We will explore the mystical element of the writing process. Which may exist. Or may not. Or may exist for you but not for me. I light a candle, write out a prayer. Maybe you meditate, levitate. I drink a coffee/spinach smoothie. Maybe you do, too. With tequila. We listen to music, white noise, nothing. We want a view; we need a blank wall.
I hope our workshop will offer enough ideas that all the people whose comments are listed above will find a process that works for them. Maybe what we need more than anything is to:
- Assess our personal situation
- See our way into a solution that does not demand superhuman effort
- Give ourselves permission to do it our way rather than some famous writer’s way
- Do it
Especially, the last one.
Finding our stories . . . and ourselves.
Alison