Forget Writing, Think Writing Process Instead
Why writing is about much more than what you put on the blank page
It’s easy to think the only real writing that counts is the actual and literal act of writing. I know because I get caught up in this one-task mindset too often to count. But what if I told you there was a better way to think about it?
What if this better way could help you stop feeling overwhelmed, unproductive, and like you didn’t know what to write next (or how to be a writer)?
You’d be a little curious, right?
I’m talking about the writing process. Stepping back from the task of writing to appreciate the big picture that all the parts of the process that come together to help you produce the amazing articles, stories, and other creations that you’re producing.
I hear you, it does sound like a simple play on words. Writing, writing process, what’s the difference?
Well, I’m glad you asked. Let’s pop the hood and take a look at the mechanics.
Writing Process vs. Writing
Writing is a task, but the writing process is a project.
It’s easy to limit your thinking about the writing process to the most obvious part, the writing. I tend to give more focus on this one part at the expense of the rest, thinking I’m not really writing if I’m not actively putting words on the page.
This changes when you switch your perspective just a little and stop limiting your understanding of what exactly counts as writing and what doesn’t.
When you go from writing to the writing process, you expand the scope of your work to something more like a project and not just the one task that gets all the attention (writing).
With more parts to work with, even if the task of writing is not going as well as you like, you can switch tasks and work on other parts of the project.
The writing process
- Brainstorming, active thinking, putting ideas on paper and making connections
- Giving your thoughts time to gel
- Outline, early prep work
- First draft
- Letting it sit
- Second draft and beyond
- Research
- Final draft
- Putting it in the world
These are neither hard and fast rules, nor an exact step-by-step process. But, these are the parts of the process I’ve noticed in my writing.
You’ll notice a few things on this list:
I emphasize the necessity to give yourself time to simply think, and to let those thoughts gel. I believe all good ideas deserve time to form and become something more substantial.
Ideas are connections between things. They are the links that connect lives and innovations. We need to give these connections time to spark and to find one another.
I separate first drafts from second and beyond drafts in the drafting process because the first draft isn’t meant to be anything but finished. But once it’s finished, it needs time away from you so it can become strange to you, distant from your typing hands and writer’s brain.
This will help make sure errors pop out, and weird clunking sounds in the rhythm (flat tire rhythm) more noticeable.
And you’ll notice that I put research in at the later stages of the drafting process. Now, you could do some research as part of your idea and brainstorming stage, but you might not know everything you need to learn that early in the process.
The reason for this is that momentum is the name of the game early on. Whatever you do, don’t slow down once you start to actively write.
Get the ideas going, turn them into a draft, write fast, write messy, write to get it done.
When you hit a spot you recognize you need some more info on or see a place where a quote or a link could go, put a noticeable mark there (tk, asterisks, a row of underscores or dashes or whatever works) and keep moving forward. Then you can circle back later and plug in the research.
Putting this in practice
When you go from seeing your work as just writing, to a writing process, you begin to also shift your understanding of each task that makes that process possible.
Ideas and brainstorming lead to writing drafts and eventually doing research, which leads to a final draft and eventually a final read and then sending your story, post, article, or whatever off to the wide world beyond.
Here’s how you do all of this for real in your day to day writing process:
- Assign each part of the process its own time. This could be a specific time of a day or even a designated day or part of a day where you batch together several writing projects and knock out one part of the process together.
- Assign each task for an amount of time. This will help you avoid both burnout and overwhelm. You know yourself better than anyone, so, be honest, pick the amount of time you need and know you’re actually capable of for each task. Be sure to give yourself plenty of time for the actual writing, as this may require most of your allotted time when you get to it. Conversely, when you get to the research stage, focus on time restriction so as not to get sucked down a rabbit’s hole of information.
- Focus on the task at hand. When you’re brainstorming, brainstorm and nothing else. When you’re mind-mapping, mind map, and nothing else. When you’re writing, write, and nothing else. When you’re editing, edit. In other words, don’t get lost to multitasking.
- See each part of the process for what it is, a task in the overall writing process. This is important because it’s so very necessary for all of this to work. No part is the whole process and the whole process is nothing without its individual parts to make it all mean something.
- Each part of the process feeds the next. Recognize the value and importance of each part of the writing process, and lean into the task of connecting the parts as they each build the whole.
Takeaway
Expanding your understanding of writing from just the one task, writing, to the process it is a part of is the fastest and strongest cure for overwhelm, burnout, and not knowing what to write next.
Free yourself from limiting ideas for what is and isn’t writing, and focus on the progress each stage of the process represents. This will not only accelerate what you write but also help you write more clearly and on an ever-widening range of subjects.
When you see your writing as a part of a process instead of just one task, you are better equipped to truly and powerfully take your writing to the next level.
