Steve Almond says in his tiny and perfect book This Won’t Take But A Minute, Honey (I SO highly recommend this book, buy it here): “Writing is decision making, nothing more, nothing less.” Rather than agonize over every decision to the point of freezing up your writing or being so cavalier about your decisions that your writing never grows, Almond suggests that we strive “to attain that elusive state in which your decision-making become intuitive, rather than labored.”
And as writers, we understand this on a cellular level. For many of us, I think, this is why we write, to reach that moment when the process is intuitive and we can trust it and something comes directly from the vast subconscious through our hands onto the page that actually makes sense to us and others without being awkwardly arranged there by our conscious minds.
One of my biggest questions as a novice writer was, “how do I get more of that?” As in, “how do I get to the point where this elusive state is the rule rather than the exception?” For me, this has been a question with a two part answer.
Answer #1: Gain the skills I need in order to make the decisions without even being conscious of making them.
Answer #2: Know when to push myself, and when to back off.
Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll explain what I mean by both of these.
#1 is pretty straightforward. But to me, it’s also magical. Or neuroscience. Or both. Isn’t it amazing that we can learn skills that then become so automatic that when we write, they just come out correctly? Grammar is a very simple example of this, but it’s in every other aspect of writing, from know the right word to describe the look in her eyes that fits the tone that fits the theme, to knowing exactly what our character will do in that moment when she is face to face with the dragon. In the process of drafting, I think, we reveal a snapshot of our writing ability at the moment when the work was drafted. When I look over old drafts, I find them riddled with bad decisions that I would never make in a current draft.
There are many ways of gaining these skills; you can read about them in a book, you can learn them from a teacher, you can become intimately aware of the difference between good and bad decisions by critiquing the work of a peer, as well as by revising your own work with a strong critical eye. But I think the key is practice. Learn what works and what doesn’t work, then exercise that knowledge by practicing–that is, drafting–a lot. And be patient–know that every draft you produce will be a little bit better than the last, because it will contain everything you’ve learned about writing since.
Answer #2, know when to push yourself and when to back off, is a little more tricky. Drafting is a unique kind of writing. It’s not free-writing, where anything goes and the object is just to put pen to paper and write about anything. It requires a certain amount of structure to get to the state where decisions are coming intuitively. But it also requires a certain amount of freedom. Learning how to strike this balance between structure and freedom is the key to reaching that elusive state.
Maybe I can explain what I mean here by illustrating something that happens when I draft. A lot of people say, “don’t edit while you draft, turn off your internal critic, maybe even turn off your computer screen if it’s too distracting.” And that may be true for others. But I have always found that if I pause to fix a misspelled word or edit a typo while I’m drafting, it actually helps me stay in the flow state.
I’ve always wondered why this is, and I finally figured it out during the last month of insane drafting. When I’m working along intensively, I need micro breaks in order for my brain to process (subconsciously) the events on the page and find the right words for the next sentence. These tiny breaks to fix typos actually give me the space I need to keep the thread of drafting. I get the same effect by doing something like playing with kinetic sand or a stress ball for a few seconds, then setting it down and typing again.
Now, if I hadn’t been giving myself freedom to draft how I needed to, not how people told me to, I never would have made that discovery. If I scolded myself for fidgeting or procrastinating, I’d end up with the wrong words, the wrong decisions, since I wouldn’t have given myself the space to find the right ones.
So my biggest piece of advice for writers who are still struggling to get to that elusive point where writing is flowing most of the time is this: give yourself the freedom to experiment and figure out what makes your writing flow best. Chances are it won’t be anything like what I do.
For example, I draft best working chronologically forward in the story; but maybe you will find that skipping around to write different parts of the book helps you keep your flow state strong. Or, where I like to hold the whole picture of the story in my mind as completely as possible while I’m drafting, maybe for you it’s better to break the drafting process down into scenes and then put them together like puzzle pieces.
The key is to give yourself that freedom to explore. I wish I could say, here’s the best way to draft, now go do it! But chances are it wouldn’t work for you.
Another thing to remember is that you’ll still have bad days, no matter how intuitive writing becomes. And this is where the push comes–sometimes, rather than spending hours trying to find just the perfect conditions under which to draft, you’ll have to push through the chunky beef stew drafting just to fill up the pot.
How will you know the difference? For me that comes naturally now, like knowing the difference between a clear mountain stream and a mudslide. But when you’re starting out as a writer, it’s harder to tell if your methods are faulty or if you’re just having a bad day. In order to keep your drafting from deteriorating into freewriting, set limits. Give yourself just one “experiment” to try per drafting session, and if the change in your method doesn’t work, make yourself push through to your required word-count or time limit.
Above all, don’t give up. It may seem like the muse is gone, but there is a gorgeous flow drafting experience coming right around the corner. Keep pushing through until you reach it.
How do you draft best? What things have you given yourself freedom to do while drafting that opened up your creativity rather than stifling it? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Coming up next: Your draft is done, now onward to revision in 101 TIWIK #55: Knowing When to Hire an Editor.
