The Process

The creative process is whimsical. Frustratingly so, like the digestive system. Some days things run smoothly and you feel like a million bucks, and some days you push and strain and produce nothing.

Maybe whimsical isn’t the right word. Maybe what I mean is tormented. A recent post took me four days to finish, including a three-hour stretch where I deleted a word, then added it back, then deleted it, added it again, then glared at the sentence before deciding to cut the entire stupid paragraph.

Recent conversation at the dinner table:

Sam: Are you okay?

Me: Yeah. Why?

Sam: You look upset.

Me: No, I’m fine. (pause) Which word do you like better, pejorative or judgmental?

Sam: Aren’t they both pretty much the same thing?

Me: Forget it.

Recently, I came across this quote:

William Faulkner drafted As I Lay Dying in six weeks while he was working the night shift at a power plant. He later said, "I set out deliberately to write a tour-de-force. Before I ever put pen to paper and set down the first word I knew what the last word would be and almost where the last period would fall.”

Unlike Faulkner, I set out with only a nugget of an idea and sometimes I get lucky and the words fall into place. Seldom is my first-draft writing fluid. It’s more unattractive flapping than flying, but I can’t resist persisting.

Whether flowing or blocked, writing feels urgent. Getting stuck is crazy-making, but that need to set down words is how you know, god help you, you’re a writer.