The Craft of Writing

I write regularly and will always continue to do so. The immersive experience of formulating ideas and putting thoughts to paper is a natural high to me. From outlining a theme, choosing an apt title, scribbling down thoughts, writing up a draft, revising paragraphs, and changing nuances, all to form a coherent whole, I revel in this creative exercise.

Make no mistake, not each and every minute of my endeavors are inspiring. On some days I can easily pen down a good thousand words and more, but on others, a mere trickle of untidy ideas and sentences are all that reaches the paper. Sometimes days, even weeks go by without one word. At other times the words continue to pour out.

Writing, with its own ebb and flow of energy, is a universal form of creativity. And when it comes to creativity we cannot always find the muse, but at the times when the muse finds us, it is one of the purest forms of enjoyment.

Here is what I am learning so far about writing.

Our brains are much like a muscle and needs a warm-up period. Often I am not in the mood for writing, but a deadline looms and I just sit down and start. Then something interesting happens. After some time it is as if my mind becomes more attuned and nimble, the juices start flowing and the energy feeds on itself. So I have learned to ignore myself and my mood during the first fifteen minutes or so of writing. The writing process creates its own mood and energy.

There is nothing, and I repeat nothing, that I have ever written which in hindsight could not have been done better. Perfection is never attained although I strive for it. My thoughts continue to permeate long after I have jotted down the final word of a book or article. I accept that the pursuit of perfection is futile, yet always try to hone a piece of work as well as I can. But at a certain point one always needs to say: “That’s good, and it’s good enough for me.”

One can only correct and shape a piece if there is something to begin with. So write even though the first draft is pure nonsense. Only when the brain actually has something to work with can it shift into another gear and evaluate and improve that something. I have learned not to spend too much time thinking about what I am writing, but rather just get something on paper because then the iterative process of producing, improving and correcting takes on its own life.

Ideas come to me when I am not at my desk pounding the keyboard. A coffee break, driving to work, minding mundane chores -  ideas come to me away from the desk. This is the mysterious process of incubation where our sub-conscious works even though we are not deliberately focusing on what we are writing. The chance combinations produced by the vastly superior workings of our sub-conscious, can only arise when we are not steering our minds in a narrow direction. So I trust the to and fro of focused attention and then letting it go, both are part of the creative process.

I have my own rule of three when producing a work of writing. I spend a third of the time planning and researching, a third of the time actually writing down the piece, and a third of the time re-writing and fine tuning. This applies whether it is a book done over many months, or a short post such as this very one you are reading. If I follow these phases then I think I have written well. 

Not perfect, but good enough for me.