The writing process and the profit of doing things backwards...

Oliver Baggins, Esq. in repose. 

Welcome, Gentle Readers. I had meant to write something in February, but February ran away from me. But no, I wasn't sleeping it away like a certain feline who inhabits my home. No, I was luckily making some good progress on my PhD.

I haven't talked a lot about my writing process so far, so I thought I might talk about it a little (or a lot!) here. As background, my PhD is in Creative Writing, which means that I am effectively writing a novel and then an exegesis or critical element to follow. It's intended to be a 80k/20k split in terms of words, although I am well over the word count and have been for some time.

As the title above suggests, I have not written the novel sequentially. In fact, I started at Chapter 14 and wrote to the end of the book before returning to the beginning. I am now working on Chapter 4 and hope to finish up with Chapter 13 in August or sooner. This is not--emphasis on the 'not'--the normal method for writing a novel and it has caused some consternation with my advisors. I'm likely the first PhD student that they have had who has started a novel in the exact middle of the book.

So, the big question is: why? Why did I start in the middle? Well, the real answer for that is that, at the beginning of my time as a PhD student, the action that takes place in the middle of the book is what was foremost in my mind. I had a very clear understanding of what happened in the last half of the book and was a little fuzzier on what came before. So, I started from where I felt the story was the strongest.

How many of these infographics have you seen?

The good news is that this made the writing 'easier'. I put that word in quotations because writing of any kind is generally hard and not easy. I think people greatly underestimate how difficult it is to achieve quality writing. Good writing is hard. I teach Academic Writing at the University of Strathclyde and this four-word sentence has become something of a mantra. So, yes, good writing is hard, but the question for each writer out there is: how can you make it easier for yourself?

There are numerous techniques out there to help writers improve not only the quality of their writing but the mechanics, if you will, behind it. What a lot of writers tend to overlook is their own writing processes. How often have you asked yourself, for example, how do I write? What processes, conditions, and elements contribute to my writing successfully? How can I motivate myself to being a better writer? I suspect, unless you've been to a writing class or two, these are questions you've never openly asked yourself.

Funny, yes. Helpful, no.

So working reflectively as I do in the class, I've managed to become more self-aware of my own writing process. Some of the elements and conditions have not changed since I was young, but others are very much learned. If there is one single element that has really stood out for me in my own development as a writer, I would hazard to say that it has been the idea of 'accrual.'

Now accrual is a term that most people will identify with business, most closely with accounting or banking. The term is equally valid with respect to putting down words on paper. If you read a lot of biographies of, or interviews with, successful writers, you will find that most talk about the importance of producing a draft. A draft, many say, is the essential building block of a good novel. Without the draft, you don't know the thing, you can't begin to understand its shape, its potential, and its significance. So getting a completed draft done is essential.

Fine, yes, we understand that, but how is a completed draft achieved? This is where the writing process comes to the fore. Your writing process will determine how quickly and effectively you produce that draft and everything that follows. So it is, perhaps, surprising that so few people consider their own processes to begin with. An awful lot of academic and creative writers seem to attack the problem blissfully unaware of process.

In my experience, however, being self-aware in this sense is of paramount importance. Knowing your writing process and being able to change it, adapt it, amend it based on different needs and conditions is what make writing successful--or, at least, more successful. So, let's come back to accrual. At its basic, the idea is that productivity requires sustainable accrual of words--our building blocks. So a good day is a day when the conditions are right, our focus and motivation are there, and we write a good amount of words.

What constitutes a good amount of words is a topic for a future post, I think, but here is where accrual really shines. Provided that you have written, that you have succeeded to produce words on a page or words on a screen... you have accrued. Success! And every day that you continue to accrue--either with a small word count or a large one--adds to your success. This idea goes counter to the implicit beliefs of many writers. Many of you out there would not be happy with achieving only 100 words a day. But sustain even that amount over 10 days and you have 1000 words. Say you are quite happily reaching 500 words a day, then after 10 days you have 5000 words. No small feat.

In terms of productivity, what matters is that words are accrued sustainably across a number of days. You don't have to hold out for the perfect conditions where you can write 5000 words in one day--something that might only happen once a month for some. But you can be happy and keep yourself motivated by continuously accruing words on the page. Much of this does come down to motivation. I see a tremendous amount of writers who demotivate themselves by setting unrealistic targets (e.g. 2500+ words every day) and feel distraught when they are unable to reach those targets.

No pressure then?

The idea of being happier with less might seem backward in our culture currently, but for me and a large number of the people I teach, it is one of the few ways to achieve more writing. No one person's process will be the same as another, so your mileage may vary, as they say, but certainly this principle of accrual seems to work very well indeed for writers who lack the time and resource to set aside whole days or weeks for writing. I would urge you to try it out. What can it hurt?

The same, I would argue, can be said for the structure of your writing. So, yes, I started my novel in the middle. I did it for the simple reason that I felt strongest about my ability to tell the story from that point. I got words down on the page. Success! Not without its own perils, admittedly, but success! I did, for example, struggle for some time to hold the whole novel in my head and come up with a strong first chapter. In fact, I wrote it six completely different ways until I hit upon one that worked, but that is often the way with creative writing.

I guess what I am really advocating here are two things: one, as quickly as you can begin to reflect on what works and what doesn't work for you as a writer. Determine your writing process. Consider conditions (e.g. environment (a library or coffee shop), stimulus (music or silence), time (day or night), and other factors) and mechanics (e.g. free writing, outlining, brainstorming, writing in big chunks or small, etc.). But above all, learn what makes you a better and more productive writer.

Second, do not be overly informed by other writers--including myself. Do it your own way. Just because Successful Writer X writes 1500 words every morning doesn't mean that such a pattern will work for you. Don't be afraid to write 'differently'. The point is... to write. Each of us writers is an individual with individual needs and abilities. Take confidence from that. There is no right way to write. I've now seen innumerable numbers of different methods that people use. Find the one that works for you.

Right, back to my own book. I'll end this rant here, but I do encourage all of you to learn and develop your own writing process to the best of your ability. Now, get out there and write!