Willpower and Creative Process

[I actually wrote this over a year ago at a point when I thought I was going to start posting again. I pulled it out to see if I could use it now and I was surprised at myself... I think I did pretty good on it. Too bad I wasn't able to remember most of my own advice this year. Enjoy!]


Thanks to Nathan Bransford for writing such a great blog post and inspiring me enough to devote a whole entry to my thoughts on the subject.  There are also quite a few awesome and insightful comments.

In his awesome blog entry, Nathan Bransford talks a little about people’s misconceptions about the writing process and how non-writers (or aspiring writers who haven’t actually tried to write yet) think that all you need is a great idea and then whoosh! Type type type in an inspired and flowing burst of energy and creativity. Bam! Your novel is complete.

Um, no. That’s not how it works.

The idea is only the very first step. And inspiration is a fickle mistress. Writing only when inspired is a recipe for 1. Never finishing or 2. Finishing, but ending up with a disjointed mess (this I learned from personal experience).

This brings us (and Nathan) to willpower. The only way to finish a novel at all, let alone one in I-can-work-with-this-condition is to write. And that takes willpower. Some days the words flow easily, a scene feels like it’s practically writing itself or sleep is avoided not because of reading a good book, but because of writing one! But those days aren’t every day. I wouldn’t necessarily say they are even every week. In fact, they may only occur two points in the writing process: the beginning when everything is still new and exciting and the end when everything is rushing toward a climax and THE END is near.

Most days it’s easy to procrastinate. The words don’t come easily. In fact it’s almost painful to pull them out and onto the page. Finding the willpower to keep writing on these days, consistently, is why writing is hard.

To quote Nathan again: If writing is always fun you may be doing it wrong.

However, even on days that are hard, if I sit and write at the computer long enough, the words do start to come more easily (usually when I hit the conflict of whatever scene I’m writing), but that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, the whole time I’m writing every sentence is a struggle (and not because I’m trying to get them perfect—I’m never in any danger of having perfect sentences!).

Welcome to being a writer—where actually writing is the only job requirement.

(Being a published writer is a whole different thing, one that I haven’t figured out yet.)