On Twitter, John Pavlus recently asked me which bit of the writing process I like most – researching and collating information, or actually getting it down on paper.
So to answer that question more fully (and because it’s been a bit of a slow week), here’s a graph depicting my process of writing a feature. Enjoyment’s on the vertical axis, time runs along the horizontal. This applies to longer features rather than blog posts – those are more straightforward and less emotionally variable.
(And yes, I know “regurgitated” is spelled wrongly in the image. I can’t be bothered to change it)
March 30th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
I lolled….
March 30th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
I’m not alone! I *just* went through this very process for a piece. Haven’t gotten to the changes part yet, but I know it’s coming.
March 30th, 2011 at 3:32 pm
Ha! This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes about writing, from On Writing Well by William Zinsser: “Like most writers, I don’t like to write; I like to have written.”
March 30th, 2011 at 4:08 pm
Brill. But now we need a image of the plan. Do you actually have some sort of template/outline/bubble diagram/something? (And if so, where do we download it?)
March 30th, 2011 at 4:33 pm
This was fun to read….I love it when I can’t tack down an idea and it keeps growing…into a monster that needs to be hacked away at and rearranged. I’m glad to know that experienced writers go through this. Thanks for finding the idea to graph it.
March 30th, 2011 at 4:45 pm
I have been told there are two kinds of writers, those who love to research/hate to write and those who hate to research/love to write. By your graph, it seems like you and I are of the same type. Thanks!
March 30th, 2011 at 5:09 pm
@Maryn – There’s no template. Essentially, I write down all the various elements and draw lines to connect the related bits. I then find a line that connects everything. My planning sheets look like Pollock paintings.
@Lene – I actually love them in equal measure but the writing is harder and thus less enjoyable. Also the finished product is never quite as good as the version that exists in my head after all the planning is done.
March 30th, 2011 at 5:53 pm
Regurgitate is spelled wrong, not wrongly.
March 30th, 2011 at 6:17 pm
ironically or not, this is remarkably similar to my enjoyment swings when I’m doing research – from the idea, the data collection and making sense of it, having a decently coherent explanation for all that, then finally submitting it and having to deal with revisions!
March 30th, 2011 at 6:25 pm
Just to get a bit meta, did the process for developing this graph follow the same pattern?
March 30th, 2011 at 7:15 pm
Some of the worst writers I have come across were really fine scientists and researchers. For me, one of the wonderful aspects of science blogs is reading science writing that isn’t a complete mess. But then I’m frustrated just now because I’m dealing with ESL authors. (English Second Language). Not the authors fault but I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on some of the translators.
March 30th, 2011 at 10:37 pm
This is actually pretty similar to how novelists write novels, except we don’t get the luxury of pitching first…. it’s write the whole damn thing, THEN pitch and query and hope someone likes it.
March 31st, 2011 at 1:40 am
I enjoy coming up with the idea. After that, the enjoyment graph is a continuous downhill curve. Once I’m done writing something–if I actually finish which I don’t unless my paycheck depends on it–I send it off and don’t want to be reminded of that miserable ride to the bottom of the graph.
March 31st, 2011 at 2:15 am
LOL I can so relate to this! Thanks for sharing
March 31st, 2011 at 3:24 am
Heh, this was a great start to a day when I have to write a text I’m not feeling inspired about… Thanks!
March 31st, 2011 at 10:12 am
Awesome. Really made my day.
March 31st, 2011 at 10:18 am
This made me laugh! I can certainly relate to the ups and downs of it.
March 31st, 2011 at 2:37 pm
I’m reading this instead of writing my magazine cover story.
March 31st, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Hi. Really interesting stuff! Proof that there’s a lot of perspiration to refine the inspiration. Will tweet to our followers.
Best regards
Adam Charles
iWriteReadRate.com
March 31st, 2011 at 9:07 pm
RMaia’s right: replace “pitch” with “grant” and “article” with “paper” and you’ve got a pretty good picture of life in the research lab.
April 1st, 2011 at 10:53 am
Something similar happens when I’m preparing a presentation… “Sure, I’ll be HAPPY to talk about that” months before, and then mad scramble.
April 1st, 2011 at 1:03 pm
This is great, Ed! This is also the most I’ve seen your British accent come through in your writing. I can definitely relate to the highs and lows of writing, especially the “changes” dip near the end.
April 1st, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Writing a feature story right now, I’m exactly in the “seriously, I made a plan – why won’t the words arrange themselves” part (sigh)
April 1st, 2011 at 5:09 pm
I’m guessing that this whole graph came about because the author was supposed to be writing something ELSE. Right?
April 4th, 2011 at 4:04 pm
Funny description, LOL, but also too real.
As I went through reading the graph, I was physically feeling the ups and downs, like being an elevator.
“Seriously, I made a plan – why won’t the words rearrange themselves?” Riiiiight. Bad words. They’re always heading in the opposite direction and they’re too independent. It’s very difficult to discipline them (sighing too). Oh well…
Very nice post
Thank you
April 6th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
This is toooo accurate, though I tend to spend a bit longer in the “forgot how to write” phase. Hope you don’t mind but I shared this on my blog. Great stuff!
April 7th, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Brilliant, spot-on, and funny as all get-out! People always ask me where I get my ideas. Good grief, there are ideas falling out of the trees, lying about on the ground. The world is a happening place! But…oh….the process of doing something with those ideas–and then actually selling the product…oh, oh, oh. Reality bytes (pun intended). Researching, interviewing, talking, listening, expanding idea, oh glory! Wait! Now…there’s this big blank landscape of white (paper or screen) and….now it bites to have to produce the bits and bytes to make the sparkle dust, those ideas and the fun following them–quests!–into reality.
The actual writing is not just technical, but a weird, and often dark, psychological landscape of passion, frigidity (AKA writer’s slump), fear, power, procrastination, avoidance, caffeine slurping, celebration, considering a new career as say, a pillow manufacturing quality inspector, moaning, whining, and in spite of it all, finishing the damned project which now you’re sorry you ever thought of.
Then it’s time for the next one. And without it, a writer is nothing, and can not breathe.
Ideas dance in the air. But the making of something, that’s concrete and a sweaty jackhammer.
April 17th, 2011 at 3:56 am
Yuh, this is alarmingly accurate…only issue is I think I spend an awful lot more time faffing around on the internet…
May 19th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
I got such a kick out of this, I added a link to it on my blog. Thanks for the humor and insight.
October 10th, 2011 at 11:28 am
This is SO true. For any kind of writing. And despite all the books and articles, there’s always the point where “Ive forgotten how to write” and the words come out all wrong: wrong words, wrong order, WRONG. Patricia Phillips’ comment is so true too: “the making of something, that’s concrete and a sweaty jackhammer.”
Though at the moment, “pissing about on the internet” is a recurrent stage (with an overlarge manuscript lying in an untidy heap and needing to be put in chronological order. Guess I’d better turn off Firefox and slouch back into Word to deal with it.)