The first thing I know about writing is that it’s a process. Writing is not something you have done; it is something you are doing.
Sound nitpicky? Actually, it’s a radical idea, which is blasphemous to the mindset of our culture. Think of it: inherent in my statement is the assumption that the product of your writing should not be the singular point of your writing.
Unfortunately, we in the Western world have been trained otherwise. We are a product-centered culture. Our tendency is to think that the things we do don’t matter until and unless they’re finished. Even more, for many of us, the things we do don’t matter until someone else values them. So we focus on our product, on getting it done and making it worth someone else’s approval. It doesn’t really matter what it means to us, whether we value it. Our opinion is not enough to count. It’s like when our mothers told us we were pretty.
So if that product, that piece of writing, turns out to be less than we imagined? Or, it doesn’t achieve the end we intended, get the comments, provoke the compliments, make the sale? Then we’re dealing with the soul-sucking notion that our whole effort was a failure. Our goal was not met, our time was wasted, we let ourselves down. Clearly the fault is ours: we’re not talented enough. Or we didn’t work hard enough. Or….
…Maybe it’s that we weren’t inspired to begin with. Maybe real writers are always filled with inspiration. How can we ever be real writers if we have such trouble being inspired? That leads to magical thinking that involves lucky pens and shaman-blessed stones, maybe some incense as well. It also leads to a work ethic that is choppy at best. We don’t sit down to work unless we’re sure the inspiration is there, waiting to flow over us. As a result, we never get into the groove of writing. We never learn that some days are inspired writing days and some days suck, and some days are just mediocre. We never learn the secret of the “real writers”, that the aggregate of your writing practice is what counts, the median, not the high and not the low.
It’s called putting in the time. Writing
- …no matter what you’re feeling
- …no matter whether you want to
- …no matter if you have nothing to say
Who among us hasn’t been there? I dare you to raise your hand if you’ve never sat in front of the screen or paper and just thought, shoulders slumped, I don’t wanna. Fact is, however, that those of us who are writers do it anyway. It’s our job, and if it sometimes feels like Monday morning on the assembly line, well, so be it. That means, deal with it.
I like the new site a lot~~ !! I have to say that while I might not want to write a particular assignment and I might put it off, I always want to write something and I always have something to say. I don’t write freelance right now and it gives me great freedom. I know that i’m unusual in another way, too, in that some things I write I know are good and that’s enough for me. I don’t need anyone else to tell me so by buying it or complimenting it. Not everything I write is good but when I know it is, I don’t necessarily need validation. The last essay I placed in an anthology was good and it honored my late friend and for that reason I placed it. But if it were about me, I wouldn’t much care. I know, strange kinda writer.
I think we get to a certain point when this being a writer business is second nature that there are all sorts of payoffs at the end of a session. Sometimes it’s just having fun playing with words. Sometimes it’s getting all riled up and expressing it. And sometimes it’s just the fun of what I call “noodling”…the writer’s version of doodling.
Love this, Jane.😊❤
C’rella….and didn’t I read somewhere that you are writing again? Question #2: Did you know that we’re in Natomas?????
<3
Awww, shucks. Thanks, babe.
Thank you for the validation! I get so caught up in the doing that I seldom have time to reflect on the process or how I feel about it. You put a lot of it into words.
I think so much of what I do as a coach, Roxanne, is figure out what worked for me when I got nutsy about something writing related and then see how the same thing is affecting someone I’m working with. We can be horrible taskmasters of ourselves—which doesn’t make the writing any better.