I have been thinking about my writing process, and I have arrived at this step-by-step guide. I belong to the Toni Morrison school of thought. Last line first, then work backwards.
Thomas Mann once said that writers are those for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. And for those on here who think putting pen to paper is just words and punctuation and basics of grammar and composition, this is what writing entails.
1. Thinking.
2. Losing sleep over a story/essay possibility. Frequent crying into your pillow over the beauty of a sentence.
3. Getting up in the middle of the night to get that one sentence down so you don’t forget the stunning syntax of your thought, punctuation included. Nothing has looked more beautiful than the scrolling marquee in your head.
4. Avoiding writing like the plague for the next several days.
5. Making a matrix of words you want to use in what you are currently writing.
6. Defiling said matrix with a red pen, followed by bouts of weeping for no reason.
7. Finding a word that you *know* belongs in what you are currently writing.
8. Endless pots of coffee.
9. More avoidance of the actual, physical act of writing. Wishing for elves to come get it done.
10. Finally sitting down to get the goddamn draft done, because deadline.
11. Finishing, then reading through, marveling at it, and sending it in.
12. THEN obsessing over each sentence.
13. Invoking Italo Calvino’s spirit to help you find le mot juste. You know, exactitude.
14. Craft. Syntax. Variety. Rhythm. Punctuation. Literary flourishes. Precision. Wabi-sabi. Line breaks.
15. Revising at the line level, then at the paragraph level, then at the narrative level.
16. Paragraph placement and replacement.
17.Obsessing over a word that doesn’t quite fit once the piece is published.
18. Wishing for several parallel lives where there is no need for do-overs.
19. Apologizing to the self for just not getting it right. Never getting it right.
20. Night sweats.
21. More coffee.
22. Crippling self-doubt.
23. More self-doubt.
24. Reading the published piece after a degree of objective detachment has been attained. Thinking, hmm, you know, there is a spark here.
25. And then thinking that is all there is. A spark.
26. What were you thinking, sending it in?
27. Mental self-flagellation.
28. The discovery of a new word in a book from the pile of books you have strewn around.
29. The potential. The possibility. The romance.
30. Lather, rinse, repeat*.
(*Multiply by n if you also happen to be an editor).
