Comments on: The writing process

By: Don Lyman

Don Lyman — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 01:29:34 +0000

For my latest feature article I did a “field interview”, part of which entailed crawling around on my hands and knees in the mud with a biologist for three hours looking for a rare salamander species — which we didn’t find! Still a fun experience though.

By: Michelle Fay Cortez

Michelle Fay Cortez — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 14:22:08 +0000

OMG you are brilliant. It’s the stuff the comes next that is the worst, though. Maybe you can graph that the next time you hit a lull…

By: Trish Groves

Trish Groves — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:02:21 +0000

Hi Ed
Fab graph; thanks.
Could I please use it in talks – properly crediting you, of course?
Trish

Trish Groves, deputy editor, BMJ and editor in chief BMJ Open

By: Tim Bradley, Writer

Tim Bradley, Writer — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:11:02 +0000

As the estimable William Syron once said, “Let’s face it. Writing is hell.” As I embark on my “encore career” as a freelancer, I’m discovering what he meant. Your graph was a welcome bit of whimsy (and truth) that I’ve linked to on my website. Plus, I always enjoy a good pasta metaphor. Or was that a simile?

By: Elizabeth Moon

Elizabeth Moon — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 15:28:47 +0000

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.)

By: Donna

Donna — Fri, 20 May 2011 03:40:23 +0000

I got such a kick out of this, I added a link to it on my blog. Thanks for the humor and insight.

By: Raff

Raff — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 07:56:22 +0000

Yuh, this is alarmingly accurate…only issue is I think I spend an awful lot more time faffing around on the internet…

By: Patricia Phillips

Patricia Phillips — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 16:14:45 +0000

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.

By: Monica

Monica — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:51:34 +0000

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!

By: Jacqvern

Jacqvern — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 20:04:15 +0000

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