Write Like a Plumber
What to do when your creative pipes get clogged
Lately, my writing has bogged down. My creative juices are flowing, but before I shape them into readable content, they turn into not-so-creative sludge.
As a father of two — one of which a sleepless baby — I generally don’t have lots of time to begin with. Staying home with the kids during the pandemic shrunk my writing hours to nanoscale levels.
Still, I can’t blame just the pandemic for my downward curve. My productivity has been dragging since the beginning of 2020.
For some reason, editing and polishing my essays takes forever.
I know I can do better.
It’s not a matter of trying harder — I already don’t get enough sleep and I don’t have any more hours. I don’t want to try harder.
I want to get more efficient with the time that I have.
Structure
During a recent tweet exchange with Gillian Sisley, I realised that so far I haven’t been doing myself any favours. I am chaotic and disorganised. When I eventually achieve structure and content, the number of casualties — in hours of work — is always high.
Gillian mentioned her structure model: “Intro, 3 Sections, Conclusion.” The simplicity of it shook me.
Then, it dawned on me: I have to have a structural paradigm. Not because I need to blindly adhere to a formula (and neither of course does Gillian), but because I need something to build my outline on. Something from which I can start outlining any essay.
It doesn’t have to be complicated — just slightly more specific than “Beginning, Middle, and End.”
Why my writing suffers
I said, editing takes forever. It’s not always the editor’s fault, though.
I dig too deep — every time
This isn’t a case of diplomatically answering the “what’s your biggest weakness” interview question. Yes, digging deep is a plus, but I am talking about a compulsion: I have a masochistic belief that unless I confront my demons every time I write, I am not being honest enough.
Lately, during the writing of every single essay, I listen to an inner sountrack that includes the hit singles What Was I Saying?, The Great Impostor, That Thing’s All Over The Place, and Screw It — Time To Hit Publish.
Okay, let’s be positive. It’s a fine and honest journey — but it sure hurts! I don’t want to put myself through purgatory every time I do my job! I am aware that I don’t always hit the high notes, but I’m not completely tone deaf. I can put two sentences together. Having a voice chant “I’m not good enough” and “This is a piece of shit” doesn’t really do me any good in terms of productivity.
Chaos reigns
Another problem is that I don’t give much thinking to the structure before I start writing. I go to battle without tactics or a plan. Then, I let every essay guide me and shape it as it demands.
This is fine and honest, too. But the consequence is that — just like with Purgatory — I also confront Chaos. Every time.
Yes, jumping into the action without a plan gives me an illusion of Dionysiac ecstasy. It boosts my artistic ego. But it drains me every time. I don’t have the energy to go through a chaotic frenzy on a regular basis.
Digging alone
When an essay doesn’t go well, I usually close myself off. Not having appetite to go on Twitter, I become a horrible reader — a non-reader, actually — and I hardly have the energy to comment on other people’s work.
This has several repercussions:
(1) I go nuts: I have no one to talk to, so I leave too much space to self-criticism. My inner critic goes wild and shutting him up takes a lot of effort.
(2) I become a horrible member of the writing community: being too stressed to just get my work out there, I don’t have eyes for reading anything by anybody else. I love talking to people and promoting their work and I hate when an essay consumes me to the point of disappearing for 2–3 days or more.
(3) It hurts my own publicity: by disappearing, I lose so many opportunities to show my work.
(4) I lose opportunities to find answers: an Aha! moment can come from everything — like Gillian’s tweet — or rather a tweet of the 3rd degree in a chain of tweets. Why would I want to miss that?
All eggs in one essay
So far, I’ve been a one-track mind. When I write something, there is nothing else.
Okay, focus is a good thing, right?
Not exactly. Focusing on only one essay at a time makes the whole thing monolithic. If the specific essay — The One — bogs down, my whole writing slows to a halt. Whatever the problem, I can’t publish anything, until I resolve it. It can take days — days of work, not counting the ones that I am just avoiding the whole subject.
Fixing problems like a pro
I’ve had enough. I know the problems, so I must now apply the solutions.
Professional distancing
I write web content. Although web content can be poetic, my role models aren’t tormented souls like Edgar Allan Poe, rather journalists and copywriters.
I need to learn from professionals, who write and deliver within deadlines.
And those people practice professional distancing.
A heart surgeon isn’t supposed to mourn over each patient’s imminent death. They are supposed to perform the bloody operation and save them!
But writing is an art!
Ha! Good luck going down that route. A plumber may very well see a symbolic meaning in unclogging pipes, but they can’t go through an existential journey every time they enter a boiler room.
Writing is no different. It’s a job, so my clients — my readers — expect me to act as a professional and de-li-ver.
Otherwise, someone else will take my place. I know a couple of plumbers. I’m sure you know more than a couple of writers.
Draw a map first
There is perhaps a belief that unless I lose myself in the dark forest of my demons, every time I write, I am not writing in honesty. Unless I lose track of what I want to say and re-find it, I am not writing truths.
Crack! — the whip of self-punishment.
Explorers went into the unknown, but they still had a map and a compass. I don’t need to kick myself so much.
I need a method. A plan.
The map is called outline. The compass is called spine —or through-line or conclusion. Call it what you will, as long as it does the trick: keep the writer on the path of the story. Beginning, Middle, and End.
The plan may fail at times. But that’s not a good enough reason not to have a plan at all. Everything is a dance between Planning and Flexibility.
The truth is out there
I can’t isolate myself. I can’t afford to indulge in self-whipping during the little time I have to write.
I am not saying I should escape to Twitter and not write at all, but little procrastination never hurt anyone. Especially when it’s part of the job.
I don’t need to ask for help directly. Asking questions, reading the wisdom of others, engaging with a community — even one irrelevant to my work — is often enough. It stirs things up in a mysterious way, causing answers to emerge apparently from nowhere.
Keep more pipes open
It is better to keep a couple of essays open. If the first stays behind, the second maintains the creative flow, until the other catches up.
No more self-whipping. I just switch.
It’s all about getting the energy flow from Beyond, through the Writer, to the Reader. Today this may happen with an essay about productivity; tomorrow with one about masturbation.
The whole point is to maintain a healthy flow. By working on more than one essays, I keep more pipes running. There is less probability that a minor blockage will cause the whole system to clog. (It is about plumbing, after all.)
Conclusion
Chaotic drafts are not always the way to go
Writing chaotic drafts — or wishful thinking drafts — is fine for exploring deep and very personal projects. So is free writing.
I need to write more efficiently than that, though. It’s not only about creating a larger body of work, but a fulfilling life, too.
I don’t mean only more money in less time, but also more smiles with and to my family, more time with them, and a better mood in general.
Who doesn’t need all that?
In order to deliver and keep delivering on a deadline, I need to get a method in place. Something simple, that sets the overall framework of any essay.
And you know what? I’ll go with Gillian’s “Intro, 3 Sections, Conclusion” paradigm. In fact, I already applied it to structure this piece. The 3 sections became 2, but who cares?
I delivered. On time. And sane.
