Teaching an old dog new tricks. April 8, 2008 ~ 2:11 pm
Posted by Julie in : Uncategorized , trackbackI have always thought of myself as a writer, and generally if you think of yourself as a writer, you think of yourself as a pretty decent one. We only define ourselves as something if we’re good at it, after all. Now just because I think I’m a decent writer doesn’t mean I’m a decent writer all the time (blog posts written while I’m multi-tasking are proof of this). It also doesn’t mean that I have a great process to produce decent writing.
Frankly, I’m discovering that my writing process - which I relied on throughout at least eighteen of my twenty years of schooling - pretty much sucks. For starters, I can produce writing under pressure, so for many years I deluded myself into thinking that I needed that pressure to write something. Um, no. I was an idiot with procrastination problems. Also, my writing goes something like this: write something. Is it perfect? Did it say what I wanted it to say in just the right way? No. Delete it, start again. After I get that sentence done, move on. Today I finally realized that system is not very efficient. At all. It’s much better to get something down on paper, leave myself a note that says “This isn’t quite right, find another way to say it,” and move on to the next sentence. Get all of it out of my head and on to paper, then make revisions.
Did I mention that I’m thirty and that I can recall numerous occasions where teachers and professors told me this exact thing and I never implemented it? So I’m an inefficient procrastinator who is also a stubborn idiot. Wonderful.
Today on my lunch break, I was working on a grant. I told the artistic director of the theater that I’m writing said grant for that I will have a rough draft for her on Monday, and for once in my life I wanted to give myself plenty of time to write it and get some feedback from Jordana. (Look, in the past I would have started it Sunday night. This is progress.) And since I realized the “Get each sentence perfect” method sucked, I was getting stuff out of my head and leaving notes for myself throughout the Word document. And I remembered something else. Writing? It’s hard work. And I think the creative muscles I use for it have atrophied since I last tried to write anything that wasn’t a blog entry.
Today, writing is very similar to pulling teeth. I hope it will get easier again.
Comments
As a musician, I know what it’s like to try and break bad habits and do things differently. It’s difficult at first, but eventually you’ll say to yourself “boy I should have done this earlier”. You’ll get there.
My writing style (such as it is) is similar to what you’re getting to, without the editing part. I just write whatever comes into my head then send. Sometimes re-read. Mostly not. However, over time I’ve gotten pretty good at bullshitting, I mean, effectivey making my point first time around.
Rock on.
My method of writing is to barf words all over the screen, and then go back and try to tweak things until they seem right. Get it all OUT there, it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad or even make sense. And if you get stuck, put a WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT VACUUM CLEANERS HERE* and move on to the next section.
This is why my blogging is full of grammatical, spelling, and wtf errors. I rarely go back and edit posts before I hit publish
GOOD LUCK!
*only do this if you are writing about vacuum cleaners.
Been a long time since I wrote anything other than a blog post. I’m not sure how it would go. My method was always to try and write everyday and work from there. And I used to enjoy it soooo much! I still enjoy it, just in a different way.
I hear that Julie. Writing is tough. I should’ve been practicing.
I feel the same way - my life is so crazy any more that when I actually do sit down to write - I have way too much stuff running through my brain, and it’s all too hard to process. Add a screaming kid and a barking dog and a cat that likes to jump on my keyboard and I’m ready to pull my hair out.