Perfectionists tend to see their projects as long strings
of words?and there?s a natural tendency, when you have that viewpoint, to want
to start at the beginning of a piece and write straight through till ?The
End".
And now you can use a visualization tool I call the
?writercopter,? a mental helicopter that can transport you to any place in your
piece. The moment you feel you?ve taken a particular patch of writing as far as
you can, hop onto your copter and take it to another section that looks
enticing. Work there until you run dry, and then reboard and hop to another
part.
What if no part looks appealing? Try writing about the
piece, since your alienation from it is probably rooted in the fact that you
either need to think it through more or are trying to force it in the wrong
direction (see Section 5.9). In the unlikely event that doesn?t help, set the
piece aside and let it marinate while you work on something else.
Writing might sometimes be difficult, but it should never
be unpleasant; if it is unpleasant?if you?re feeling frustrated, bored or
stuck?that?s not an indication of any deficiency on your part, but simply the
signal to move to another part of the project, or another project. While it?s
okay to practice ?writing past the wall,? i.e., sticking with a difficult
section a bit longer than comfortable, don?t perfectionistically dig in your
heels and become an antagonist to yourself and your process.
The writercopter technique is similar to that used by the
late, great, and famously prolific author Isaac Asimov, who wrote or edited
more than 500 books:
?What if you get a writer?s block?? (That?s a favorite
question.) I say, ?I don?t ever get one precisely because I switch from one
task to another at will. If I?m tired of one project, I just switch to
something else which, at the moment, interests me more.? [From his memoir, In
Joy Still Felt.]
Note Asimov?s absolute sense of freedom and dominion
(authority!) over his work?expressed not in grandiose terms, but the simple
ability to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. And, of course, the total
lack of blame, shame, compulsion, and perfectionism.
Nonlinear writing obviously goes hand in hand with
freewriting; using the techniques together should powerfully speed your
writing. What?s more, the process is accelerative, since the more easy parts of
your project you finish, the easier the hard parts will get. (By writing
?around? the hard parts, you?re illuminating them and solving problems related
to them.)
You can combine nonlinear writing with Anee Lamott?s
famous ?one-inch picture frame? technique from Bird by Bird to get through even
the toughest piece of writing. To combat overwhelm, Lamott reminds herself
that:
All I have to do is to write down as much as I can see
through a one-inch picture frame ? All I?m going to do right now, for example,
is write that one paragraph that sets the story in my hometown, in the late
fifties, when the trains were still running.
I myself have gotten through very tough patches of
writing (meaning, sections where I felt a lot of resistance to the
writing?because the patches themselves are neither easy nor hard, but just
writing) by switching back and forth between the difficult patch and an easier
one, doing ?one-inch picture frame?-sized pieces of the tough section and
longer stretches of the easy one. The easy patches actually become a reward, in
this context, which is in itself a lovely development: writing not as chore,
but reward.
Take these techniques to their limit, as I assume Asimov
did, and you develop a very light touch around your work. You?re hopping
everywhere in the writercopter, not in a distracted way but in a focused,
effective way?and the writing is almost never a struggle, and the words just
pile up.
The alternative is you struggle with grim determination
to write the piece linearly. And so you write a page or two and ? wham! You?re
at a hard part and you stop dead. And because you don?t know what else to do,
you just keep throwing yourself against that wall?until procrastination steps
in to ?save? you from your predicament.
Tales of Space and Time
Besides seeing projects as complex in space, the prolific
also see them as complex in time. While novice writers see writing as ?just
writing,? the prolific see it as a process consisting of these or similar
stages:
1. Conceptualization (a.k.a. note-taking or ?noodling
around?)
2. Planning and outlining (a little more structured than
above)
3. Research
4. First Draft
5. Revision(s)
6. Final Draft
7. Submission(s)
8. Cash the Check (for freelance and other writers who
get paid)
Note how the stage most people think comes first?First
Draft?actually appears halfway down. A major cause of unproductivity and blocks
is that the writer omits, or skimps on, the earlier stages?which means she is
trying to write something she doesn?t sufficiently comprehend.
Trying to write a first draft without first spending
adequate time on stages 1-3 is like planting a garden without preparing the
soil, or building a house atop a shaky foundation: a risky proposition at best.
Sure, once in a while a piece will just seem to write itself. But that?s
usually because we?ve either thought about it a lot or figured out a link
between it and other topics we?ve thought a lot about. So the early stages
were, in fact, done, only perhaps at a different time. (Also, the confidence that
comes from writing something familiar helps us resist perfectionism.)
Obviously, the stages differ from project to project, and
writer to writer. Some projects demand extensive research, others only a
little. Some writers create detailed outlines, while others work from the seat
of their pants (the famous ?plotters? versus ?pantsers? divide). And some
writers do the stages mostly linearly, while others jazzily intermingle them.
Whatever system works for you, and the particular project you?re working on, is
the right one.
It?s helpful to remember that most of us enjoy working on
some stages more than others, and those are the stages we tend to get stuck on
if we?re prone to procrastination. That?s procrastination as a toxic mimic of
productive work (Section 1.8), and it happens especially with first draft,
research, and revision.
Conversely, many writers dislike, or are afraid of,
certain stages and try to avoid them. These are, typically, the first draft and
submission, as well as marketing and other business ?chores.?
You probably know if you?re overworking or underworking a
stage due to procrastination, but if you?re unsure, ask your mentors. If the
diagnosis is, indeed, procrastination, use timed exercises (Section 2.14) to
overcome your fears.
Armed with the knowledge of the stages of a writing
project, you can now use your writercopter to move not just through space (the
landscape of your project), but time: more specifically, back to a prior stage
whenever you?re stuck. I recommend moving back to conceptualization, planning,
outlining, or drafting, but not research because it is a frequent vehicle for
procrastination.
Another important productivity technique is to identify
the easiest parts of your project so that, when all else fails, you can work on
them. When, during the writing of this book, I was severely distracted or
demotivated, I worked on the bibliography. Why not? It had to get done, and
doing it empowered me and helped me get re-motivated as soon as possible.
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