Respect the Process

You have a writing process—we all do—whether you realize it or not. Just because you don’t think of yourself as a “writer” doesn’t mean that you don’t have either a conscious or subconscious routine that you go through as you assemble your thoughts on paper. For the beginning writer, or the writer who finds the act difficult, perhaps the process involves a lot of structured prewriting: taking notes, making outlines, freewriting, brainstorming, strange internal conversations that no one outside his head would understand—whatever it is, all writers start from somewhere in an attempt to collect ideas.

More experienced writers internalize the prewriting process. They’ve done it so many times that it has become second nature, so the first step of the writing process may be almost entirely within his mind, and the first time he puts words to paper may be the 4th step for someone else. It’s not a race: it’s an experience, this thing called writing. It’s important to respect the process and understand how you personally work through that process. Do you have a special place in your house where you feel you can work best? Do you work best with music, or silence? Do you work best with a cup of coffee, tea, vodka? Are there certain hours of the day where you feel most productive? These things all combine into your personal process, and I can guarantee that no two people have the exact same writing process.

Here’s something that I do, and this is normally in the final stages of my process, after the hard stuff is done and I’m in the editing/rewriting stage: I find a quiet space where I am alone and free from distraction and I have room to walk around. With paper in hand, I walk back and forth across the room as I read my writing out loud, to myself. I let my ear be the final judge for me. There is something about the walking, the steadiness of the paces and the rhythm of the movement, that lulls me and gets my brain going. It doesn’t work for me in any other stage of the process except for the end when I am rewriting. I can’t explain it, and I don’t feel like I want to know why this works for me. It just does, and that is good enough for me.

As you write, take a moment to observe the process. Keep what works, and try new things. Make the process your own