The Writing Process: Avoidance, Procrastination, Exhilaration, Despair, and Other Predictable Stages

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

If you are someone who by choice or career has to or chooses to write stuff from time to time, can you relate to the following?

I can remember these stages as far back as writing high school papers, certainly college papers, then later in my life as I narrowed down my fundraising career to strictly grant proposal writing with a sideline of newsletter production.

It starts with avoidance and procrastination. (In fact, this very post constitutes avoidance of a newsletter writing assignment. Today is a holiday and the person over whose signature I’m writing this “message” is off today… so no phone calls or emails will be forthcoming from him. Maybe you are reading this board at this moment, because you are in the procrastination stage.) How long will it take me to do it when I finally force myself to sit down and do it? What’s the least amount of time I can allow myself? Depending on when the deadline is, this stage can go on for hours, days, or weeks. The *thing *is always hanging over my head, but I can avoid thinking about it if I binge on one more episode of *Corner Gas. *

The next stage when I finally sit down to write is exhilaration-- *“Oh my God–clear a space on the shelf for the Pulitzer that will surely be mine! This is the best idea anyone has ever had and the best writing anyone has ever done! Move over [del]Beethoven[/del] Shakespeare!” * Reaching that stage and the confidence that comes with it makes me sure I can knock out this piece of brilliance in much less time than I thought. Thus, I now have permission to watch one (or two) more episodes of *Corner Gas *(or something else).

Eventually, I’m feeling the time crunch, and so I have to sit back down and pick up the shining little gem that I left on my computer and that was going to write itself, only to find that when I give it a good look, IT. IS. CRAP. Dogshit. It’s an insult to dogshit to CALL it dogshit. As I feel the Vortex of Despair exerting its pull, I desperately want to give in, so I can just surrender to failure and disappear into Corner Gas forever.

But deadline. People expecting me to produce. Produce something good. Something they will want to sign their name to. So I squish through the dogshit and try to find something worth salvaging. And so far, in the last 50+ years that I’ve been doing this, there always is something. Something pretty darned workable. My muse puts me through hell, but she always comes through.

Now comes the real work of writing. And when I get to this point, I thoroughly enjoy it. I can lose myself in it. I don’t care about Corner Gas. I create something. I craft a message, an argument, a bit of beauty and inspiration (depending on the assignment). On time. And it’s good. I’ve never missed a deadline or even (in school) turned a paper in late in my life. I always come through.

But I can’t seem to skip those initial stages of misery, worry, self-flagellation, avoidance, and dogshit. It’s like a ritual offering to the Writing Gods. At least they haven’t asked me to sacrifice a goat (so far).

Okay, back to my project…

2

I’ve always thought the Writer’s Clock was fairly accurate.

3

I’m not a writer, but that process pretty much describes everything about my life.

4

:eek:

OHMYGOD. I love it.

I just ordered one. :slight_smile:

5

That is AWESOME. :slight_smile:

6

I agree with all of this. This is why we make the big bucks?!

7

Don’t forget (I see the clock remembers) REWRITING.

OMG, that can’t be right. I have to check that. Ick, that’s a horrible sentence. How could I have written that. No, that one doesn’t sound any better. This would flow better if I flipped those two sections, no wait, I introduced that in the other section, now I have to move that and rewrite the other section. I typed “there” instead of "their, what idiot does that. . .

8

I am a full time writer of non-fiction. I recognise all those stages except I have one before that. I am always wildly excited to start a new book. I plan and research in a cloud of bliss. I cover new notebooks in paper and label and set out the contents and write headings on the fresh clean pages. But then comes the actual writing.

It is only the deadlines that get me there! I have the page proofs of my next book in front of me and you are right when you suggested I might be sitting here procrastinating. By this stage in a book I hate every word of it because I have read it so often. It all seems so mundane. And I still have the index to go.

I do set little tiny goals and rewards. Often it is just getting started that is the hold up and once I start on the day’s work I am fine.

9

I’ve been freelancing for a marketing firm. Not my usual type of writing at all. I spent years doing process documentation. When I get stuck, I treat myself and draft my invoice.

10

I have to say that for me rewriting and editing is the part I enjoy most. It’s getting something down TO edit that makes me crazy. Of course, then you have to know when to stop.

I did finish the message that I referred to in the OP. I called my contact and the person over whose signature I’m writing the message won’t be back in the office until Thursday. So instead of sending the message to my contact yesterday like a smart person, I’m going to hang on to it today and keep tweaking and messing with it. Fortunately I’m having cataract surgery tomorrow morning, so I’ll have to send it in at the end of today. So thank goodness for deadlines and surgeries, eh?

Oooooo…new notebooks, didja say?? There’s nothing better than new notebooks… :slight_smile:

Yes, mundane = dogshit, i.e. boring, commonplace, been done a million times before, plus smells bad.

“Rewards”? Does ice cream come into play anywhere? :wink:

11

I returned to college a few years ago and I can’t believe the amount of writing I’ve had to do. The OP describes my process except for the exhilaration. I go straight to, “It’s crap”. I also enjoy the editing because the worst part is finished. Every single prof has said that more is better except in one class I have now. We have to write 500-word summaries of articles and documentaries. It’s pretty hard for me to cut down from the 1,500 words I always produce!

I watch Corner Gas during breaks, too! I love it!

12

During my years as a grant proposal writer, I almost always had a character limit on various sections of the application. I became adept at a kind of editing surgery where you leave the patient breathing and recognizable after slicing away every marginally unnecessary character (including punctuation). A bloody process.

Corner Gas is like club soda (seltzer) for the brain. Stokes the cravings for chili cheese dogs, however. :wink:

13

I started my writing work as a newspaper reporter, so writing MORE for me is torture. The last thing I wrote for publication was 5,000 words and when I was offered the work, I was actually a bit scared, kinda like the chihuahua who swallowed a peach pit …

14

Is there a way to bribe the muse to work better? I mean, can I take my muse out for a date? Buy champagne and roses, and get results?

15

A soulmate!

16

Like many, I am also very good at coming up with excuses not to write. I already have one lined up for tomorrow because it will be too hot.

Last year I stumbled on this podcast by Tim Clare, The Couch to 80k Boot Camp, where he guides you through a step by step process of writing only ten minutes each day. It gets you in a routine, opens up your mind, and takes a lot of the pressure off (except maybe deadlines) to write whatever you wish, though in this case he favours novels.

I completed it, only missing a couple of days (which I caught up on) and missing a couple of exercises (because they got too personal) and at the end of it I was in a good groove, so transitioned almost immediately into writing a screenplay, setting aside an hour a day, six days a week, just to methodically get through it, piece by piece.

Somehow it took all the pressure off me. I managed to write a first “puke draft” in two weeks, and then a readable third draft after ten weeks (it’s here if you want to read it and give feedback). I was so amazed at how “easy” it was using this simple method, that this year I have a goal of three screenplays of a similar level of finished by the end of 2019. I’m already on page 11 of a new first draft after a few days. This one might take longer due to the aforementioned excuse of hot weather turning my brain to blancmange, but I am progressing nonetheless.

I used to be a terrible procrastinator, but a simple trick seemed to knock some discipline into me. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.