The stupid lesson about writing that everyone knows but me
A lifelong cautionary tale
I’ve been cooking on a big project for the past week or so. Embarrassingly, it’s something that’s been simmering in one form or another for at least 17 years. There were large gaps in that time, to be sure, but around six years ago I decided to make it my primary creative focus. I spent a lot of time and research on it - reading dozens of books for background, drafting detailed outlines and Google docs full of notes. I lost a lot of steam during the pandemic, but I enlisted some friends to help me conceive of how to move forward and provide feedback. Yet in spite of everything, I never found a way to give it the attention it needed.
But now, over the past couple of months, it’s started to heat up again. Most days I spend an hour or two pushing it forward, with more pleasure and satisfaction than I did at any other time over the past few years. I finally found a way to give myself permission to make it work.
And here’s the dumb lesson. Are you ready?
You’re only writing when you actually write something.
IT’S SO OBVIOUS. I’m sure that this is old news to any other writers reading this - or painters, or musicians, or anyone who Does the Thing. All the research, all the note-taking, all the false starts… they’re not time wasted, certainly, but they’re no substitute for what happens when you actually put words on a page, or paint on a canvas, or notes through an instrument. The doing comes from the doing. It’s that simple.
I’ve known this for many years, of course, but somehow I keep forgetting it. In this case, it’s in part because the project grew out of all proportion in my head. It simply became Too Important for the page. Because when something is unwritten, it’s still perfect, and any action you take will ruin that forever. What a great excuse for not writing!
But at long last, I finally stumbled my way into feeling relaxed enough to let all of that go - at least for a few minutes. Who knows, maybe you might find it useful to know how that happened? I think there were three primary factors.
I read something that inspired me. I’m reading all the time, of course, but in this case it was a book almost entirely unrelated to the project, which I had picked up purely for pleasure. As I got wise to what the author was doing, it seemed to simple, yet so evocative, and so fun. I thought, wow, I wish I could free myself up to write something that feels like this. And then it hit me - I absolutely could! My long-term project would be a perfect way to play with that approach. The book I was reading had a completely different setting, time period, format, style, and intent from anything I’d associated with my project - but it was not despite but because of all this that it was able to free up my thinking I would just need to release all of the expectations that I’d been holding onto all those years. The point is to be open to inspiration wherever it comes from - the more unlikely the source, the better.
I primed myself by turning my writing into a practice. I’ve spent the first part of this year writing a new episode of The Nerve, as well as a screenplay for a short film that - glory be! - will be going into production soon (more news to come!). I’ve also been writing a weekly post for this newsletter. Based on the momentum I was building from those other projects, I wanted to give myself additional opportunities to write more freely, without a goal in mind. I’ve started to take to my sketchbook most mornings to fill a page with whatever came to mind. I’ve never done The Artist’s Journey, but I understand this is similar to that program’s “morning pages.” I’ve always chafed at systems and quotas, but I learned that the key was not to beat myself up if I didn’t do it every day or filled only half a page at a sitting. I found that most of what I was producing in this manner was little poems and blips, the sort of purely experimental, weirdo stuff that I hadn’t allowed myself to produce for so many years because I was supposed to be focused on Bigger Things - which I also wasn’t gaining any ground with, so it was a lose/lose. The point being, by making it a habit, writing is no longer something all the way over there, that I have to fight to get to. Like regular exercise, I’ve made it a part of my life, and it’s become easier - and more pleasant - to return to it over time.
I started writing in longhand again. After a month or so of insignificant but satisfying little scribbles in my sketchbook, I was reminded how much I used to like writing with a pen instead of a keyboard. How the enforced slowness of it calmed my mind and prevented me from getting carried away with myself as I do when I’m typing (which I’m very fast at). It also took me away from the screen, and the constant reliance I’d developed on checking thesauruses and other sources to get things “just right.” It was just me and my mind, and I found that this was more comfortable than I remembered. Save that other stuff for later drafts. The actual physical process of writing - the friction of pen against paper - took me out of my head and made it much easier to simply let things happen. I’ve argued elsewhere that untethered imagination is overrated, and the most valuable work takes place in conversation with materials. Guess I’ve finally started to take my own advice.
All of this loosened me up to a point where the blank page no longer scared me.
Though I’ve enjoyed writing in sketchbook, there’s still a certain formality to it. During my most fevered and enjoyable period of creative writing - high school and college - I favored yellow legal pads or my writing. The warmth of the color and the length of the page made me feel like I could just keep writing endlessly. I hadn’t touched one of those in at least two decades, so I decided to buy a pack.
I had a whole bunch of ideas for ongoing projects - old stuff I’ve been putting off for years and new stuff that came out of my sketchbook scribbles. I figured I could kick off each of these projects on a fresh pad and see what stuck.
As it turned out, my long-term, often-doomed project was the one I started with. Based on the new perspective I had developed, it was bursting to come out. Rather than twist myself up in research and planning, I decided to let go of the thousands of background words I’d written and just let rip.
The result has been some of the most delightful evenings of writing I’ve had in years. Unlike on the computer, when I feel a need to edit constantly as I go along, I just let the words flow out of the pen. I trust my subconscious more, because that’s where all this stuff is stored - the right thing will come out when it needs to. And if not, I’ll come back around to it and tighten the seams later.
I’m sure I’ve jinxed it all by talking about it here. I’m well aware this project might flounder again - life is still filled with obligations and shiny objects and other threads that need following. And even if I make it to the end of a draft, I’ll once again be faced with the daunting challenge of making it Good. But for now, I’ve settled into a groove. The usual caveat applies: What works for me may not work for you. But if hearing about all of this helps you find a groove of your own, then that’s even better!
Has any of this stuff worked for you? If not, what does? How do you keep yourself motivated to tackle a big personal project?
I agree with all of this ESPECIALLY writing longhand. It makes you work creative brain muscles differently than working only digitally
And the corollary: If you feel regret that you haven't devoted more of your life and career to writing, there's one time when that regret is guaranteed not to plague you: when you're writing.