Chapter 68: In Search of a Writing Process

Writerland is a newsletter from The Delacorte Review whose mission is to help writers tell the stories they need to tell.

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The older I get, the more I find my work focusing on editing other people’s writing. That’s not really a complaint. Editing is something I enjoy because I know I am good at it and I learn a lot about writing from it, about what works and what doesn’t. But lately, I’m finding myself wanting to write more. I miss it. To me, writing feels a bit like falling in love. It’s scary, exciting, deeply personal and you have no idea what the outcome will be. 

I want to write simply for the sake of writing. I have no essay, article, story or novel idea in mind. I just want to be one of those people who can sit down and write nearly every day. Maybe my writing will turn into something, maybe it won’t. But to write, you need to figure out what process works for you. This is where my problems begin.

As writers, we spend a lot of time talking about the writing process. How we prewrite, word vomit, revise, revisit, polish. Some swear by morning pages, others can only write late at night. Everyone seems to have found a method that works for them. But my method is a mess that I’m desperately wanting to change.

I struggle to write without the pressures of a very tight deadline. I leave my writing until the last minute every single time. I wrote my college application essay the day it was due on my iPod Touch as I rode the A train to school. I wrote my grad school application essay tipsy from the Simon and Schuster holiday party I had just attended, with five hours to spare until the midnight deadline. I am writing this newsletter the night before it will show up in your inbox. You get the picture. I will always deliver, but I will make it stressful until the very end. And that is exactly the problem – this method actually somewhat works for me. 

My best work has been produced at four in the morning a couple hours before the deadline and my worst has been when I’ve had too much time to work on something. (This isn’t me jumping to my own conclusions, it’s based on feedback from peers, professors and editors.) I am an overthinker and a perfectionist. Once I’ve written something, I will read it over and over until I hate it again. If I have time to play with my words, to cut my sentences and rearrange my paragraphs, you will be able to tell that my words are too cautious, trying too hard to impress, to be liked.

I want so badly to not be this last minute person. But I also thrive on the stress that comes with the way I write; I think a part of me actually enjoys it. But it’s draining and as I’m getting older, I don’t want to spend late nights working, missing meals because I don’t have time, waking up exhausted in the morning because I didn't sleep enough.

So how do writers actually write? Is writing always meant to be taxing, or is there another way? Recently, I’ve tried to find a new process that works for me by asking my peers and Google for suggestions. So far, I’ve tried:

Morning pages. Many people I know swear by these. Surely, waking up and simply writing what comes to mind can help anyone release and help writers practice. But I’m completely incoherent until I’ve had my coffee, and even then, I’m not usually ready to write. I’m, sadly, still not a morning person and this method didn’t work for me.

Change your setting. I’m too nosy to focus on my work in new settings. When I leave my desk to write somewhere else, I people watch too much. I’ll be at a coffee shop or in a park trying to write, but I’ll be too busy trying to eavesdrop on conversations that will not change my life in any way and likely won't show up in my writing either.

Drink alcohol. This probably wasn't good advice. But then again, many of the greats were known for their proclivity toward alcohol. I tried this, with red wine. It helped in the beginning. But I’m a social drinker. I got bored being tipsy alone and I have too much social anxiety to write at a bar.

Listen to music. I cannot word vomit without bachata or dream pop blasting in my ears. Music will always help when I’m actually writing but I have yet to find the song or artist that will get me to sit down and write on time.

Find inspiration by reading. Reading works by my literary heroes like James Baldwin and Joan Didion inspire me, but the second I sit down to write, I panic. I’ll never be as good as them and I want to be as good as them, and that intimidates me and fucks with my head. I get overly self-conscious about my own writing, so I try to recreate, to borrow from my heroes and then get discouraged when it (obviously) turns out badly.

When I look back on the moments in which I’ve felt inspired to write simply for myself, outside of my work, they are mostly moments when I’ve been very sad. Nothing has compelled me to get words on a page like a broken heart or a tragedy. But must we always be moody and brooding and insufferable in order to write? 

The reason I’ve gotten this far being a last minute writer is because I tend to live in my head. I might not write a single word until the day I absolutely must, but I will be thinking and thinking about what I want to write for days, if not weeks. I will stand in the shower and sentences from the middle of my piece will start to come to me. I will press my head against the window of a train, and the opening lines will appear as I stare out into the distance pretending I’m in a movie. The prewriting is always happening. But I still do not know how to write if there is no deadline. 

Do some writers simply know what works for them straight away, or will it take an entire writing life to figure out?

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Nothing good ever came from writers punishing themselves. We know writing is hard. We’re here to show that it doesn’t have to be torture. Writerland, The Delacorte Review Newsletter comes out every other week. Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and website. Never miss an update.