The State Of Writing
Conquering Un-Writeable Thoughts
Writing As A Skill or Practice
Writing is most enjoyable as an immersive experience. When you are immersed in your writing, it is almost like you are thinking the words onto the page.
I’ve made the decision that I want to be a writer. I thought that seemed like an easy and relaxing way to make a living. Minus the part about it being easy and making a living.
Writing is something I have seen discussed as a skill, practice, artform, or craft. I am noticing that it is closer to a state. A state of reporting anything observable. Your surroundings, thoughts, or emotions.
The practice or skill of writing, in my experience, refers to consciously entering a clear and calm state of reporting.
Don’t Overcomplicate It.
My writing experience comes from college plus a few years of practice after graduating. I was making the process more complicated the whole time than it needed to be. I was trying to figure out writing under the pretense that it was a difficult skill like I’d always heard it referenced. This prevented me from entering a nice flow when writing.
I am coming to realize it is fairly simple. When we feel a strong emotion about something, we generate thoughts related to that emotion. In other words, when we’re in a particular state of being, we tend to see perceptions in line with that state.
When we are writing, we ideally want to write out those thoughts and emotions instead of internally contemplating them.
Writing like that takes a certain amount of patience, attention, and involvement. But it quickly becomes clear that it is easier to relax your analysis and let the words develop onto the page instead of into your head as thoughts.
When I am thinking about what to write barely anything ends up on the page. I start mentally editing and gauging a response before anything is even written.
Editing
Editing is a separate activity from writing. You could say it is part of the writing process. I was first alerted to the difference by novelist Jerry Jenkins. He mentions how perfectionist tendencies can get in the way of producing a reasonable volume of writing. As well as make the process less enjoyable.
Until recently, I had exclusively edited while I wrote. It was a draining and arduous process. Now I sense that keeping the two as their own tasks allows creativity and editing skills to develop simultaneously.
There is a creation(writing) and destruction(editing) duality about them.
Editing our work should make it cleaner, neater, and easier to read. This usually involved removing redundancies and unnecessary words.
Writing, on the other hand, is about exploring your idea through language. Letting the ideas flow is a good description. It is only fun to write if they are flowing onto the page, though.
For a time, you must become ignorant to your inner critic and simply relay your thoughts. That is why free writing can be good practice, but it is a “perfect practice makes perfect” kind of deal.
Free-writing and English Class
The way they teach it in Western-American English classes anyway, freewriting is probably not the best practice for putting yourself into the writing state. It is good for practicing the habit of sitting and writing.
If you are not from the U.S. or somewhere where English Class carries meaning in the way that I used it. It could be called formatting class.
An English class outside of the United States is a class where you learn English. In the U.S, it is a class where they undress the words and give them rules and identities.
Really it does not even teach you to write. It teaches you to format in a very dry, methodical manner. Think research papers or book reports.
Conspiracy theories exist that the education system is trying to suppress our thought and streamline us into the workforce. Honestly, the way that they teach it, I can see that consequence to an extent. But I see it as more of a lack of awareness than a presence of malicious intent.
It is stifling and guides hardly anyone into an enjoyable state of writing. People who could become great writers may feel overwhelmed, avoiding certain thoughts while trying to think additional thoughts to write.
They may not feel safe writing their thoughts freely.
But remember
There Are No Rules
I am un-learning many ineffective writing habits taught in the academic space.
Any experience can be written.
You are reporting anything observable. Not thinking of something separate to write while you grapple with thoughts that seem un-writeable.
Writing from a present, calm, immersed state is more relaxing. We will end up writing longer and editing more, building up those habits.
Most importantly, though, it becomes easier.
Remember, it is supposed to be enjoyable, relaxing, and easy. Writing should be a lazy process that is fun and draws you in. Leaving you wanting to write huge quantities of material. Didn’t we all start writing because it seemed to call out to us?
We do not need to create anything perfect in order to write. We just need to think onto the page.
I hope this is a decent illumination of the state of writing!
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