Why You Haven't Heard From Me Lately. Or: Writing is Hard.

9/11/2012

It's been a full week since I've written a Butch Wonders entry. Often when I have something I have to (or want to) write and I haven't really been doing it, my brain does this (click to see a bigger version):

I'm learning to write a little faster and get stuff out there immediately. This is the "prototype early and often" principle (in design thinking parlance), or the "fail, fail again, fail better" principle (in Samuel Beckett / Zadie Smith parlance), or the "brain crack" principle (in Ze Frank parlance).

...Anyone else ever experience anything like the flow chart above?

8 Comments

Rae

9/11/2012 10:17:55 am

Yeah um uh wait...what!

maddox link

9/11/2012 12:34:31 pm

Oh please, I even wrote a whole post on this! At this point if I post once a week that was a good week. I also had to force myself to stop caring about vanity stats like views and write about what *I* wanted to write, not what I thought would get me a popularity boost. And give myself permission to breathe - if I'm not inspired / have better things to do / need some time to myself, then I take it with no (or little) guilt.

ollie link

9/11/2012 06:32:37 pm

I've heard it referred to as "perfect is the enemy of good". As in, some of us are so focussed on making something perfect that we never 'finish' anything or think it's 'ready', so we don't produce, thus depriving all the world of our brilliance. I'm trying to do the same thing - just write when I can, even when I don't have a great idea or when I don't think it's going well, and publish less-polished stuff more often.

That's the joy of a blog, in a way - if you're not too bothered about readership, but more about your own progress, you can use it as a kind of sketch pad for practice :-)

KJenkins

9/12/2012 02:23:53 am

Yes. In everything I do as of late.

I have a blog I want to write, get to the computer, have my images ready and then I get ... stuck.

Or in the metaverse where I create and decide I have a creation to make I get to the computer, downloaded all materials needed and then as soon as I open the beginnings in photoshop...I go blank.

It happens to the best (and in my case the midlin, in others worst) of us.

Head up, young person. You'll find your way out of it.

Kyle link

9/12/2012 05:17:45 am

oh yeah, definitely. I saw another diagram the other day, but it was more positive... there was actually a path that eventually led to writing. I put all kinds of barriers in my way to blogging, or writing in general. I worry it won't be interesting to anyone else, I worry I'm not doing a good enough job of expressing myself, I worry that I'll say something wrong and offend people. Too much damned worrying. A blog is a place to do your thing and as long as we're not trying to make a living off it, we should give ourselves some flexibility in terms of frequency of posts as well as subjects.

That said, you do good stuff here, don't worry about taking more time occasionally, you'll get to it eventually and it'll be good.

9/12/2012 08:04:18 pm

The other night, the Beloved Kitties knocked a bag of flour over on the counter. They walked in it, then jumped to the floor to dance Irish reels across the whole of the kitchen.

That's what it looked like anyway. I don't know why, but your chart reminded me of that.

Writing. My Muse will not let me not write. I don't have a blog, and writing is not a part of my work, so, it could be said that all my writing is for my own "entertainment purposes."

But I cannot not write. This is particularly odd since, until 2005, I never wrote anything except letters to friends. They were long, chatty letters, to be sure, but they were letters. I was writing for one person, I didn't need to explain lots of stuff because she'd already know who and what I was referring to.

Fiction is a whole 'nuther ball game. Plus, my wife has been writing since she was in her teens, what she knows about writing pointed up all that I didn't know about it, which, as it happened, was a lot.

For me, I don't like to start a new project until I,at the very least, have a finished first draft of the current one. But then, I don't like to go outside when it's really,really hot or really,really cold.

Unfortunately for that aspect of me, we live in Montana and I really, REALLY like to be outside. Likewise, I have a number of projects in various stages of done-ness. An idea strikes and I just have to jot it down in the reporters notebook I carry with me everywhere.

(TECHNICAL NOTE: Reporters notebooks are great because they are four inches wide, eight long. They're easy to slip into your back pocket and easy to write in while holding in your hand and, say, walking. Yes, I write while I walk. I get great ideas that way. And, yes, I'm aware that I'm a Hazard To Navigation, which is why I try to stay on jogging and bike paths.)

It is a constant pull between the urge to do nearly anything else, and write. I cannot understand how I can love to do something so much, and find myself so easily distracted when I start to do it. Getting started is sooooo hard. I look back at the mass of writing I've done since September of 2005 and it astounds me because I know how much of that time was spent playing with the cats, cleaning the bathroom or folding to an absurd degree, every article of clothing I, and our children, own.

Did you mention something about insecurity over the quality of your work? If your blog is a any gauge, and it is, you're really good. I mean that. You have a wonderful voice and you cover your wide ranging interests in a very entertaining way. If you've done a lot of blog-hopping I'm sure you have noticed that this is NOT a universal talent.

I, on the other hand, am usually certain that I suck. My Muse doesn't think so, and she keeps me at it. My wife likes the way I handle dialog, which, she assures me,is also not a universal talent. But then, that's what people who love you are supposed to say, isn't it?

It is so easy to be self-defeating when it comes to writing. It will never, ever be good enough. On the one hand, that dissatisfaction can be channeled into prodding yourself to make improvements and learn from your (and others) mistakes. If there is one thing I have learned about writing, and writers, it's that that insecurity never goes away completely. If you get published, you replace “Am I good enough?” at the head of the insecurity list with “Am I good enough...to do it again?”

The one thing that I am dead certain about, and other writers I've talked to agree, if you stop, you lose. You will never, ever know if you're good enough if you quit.

Butch Wonders link

9/17/2012 05:04:30 am

magical stretch link

8/19/2013 04:27:33 pm

The flowchart that you given is very interesting and it gives a brief idea between the relationship between fun and work. According to me writing is hard because it need lots of creativity and the passion for it. Thank you.

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