For the most part it boils down to I write when I want (usually late at night and early afternoon) and I don’t write when I can’t (forcing it has never bode well for me). Of course I keep in mind deadlines but instead of like a routine around writing I can tell you a routine around writing a piece?
So, if I am asked to write a piece or pitch something accepted, the first thing I do is open a Google Doc and create two pages. On the second page I write any and every thought that comes to mind about it and I keep the tab open often and keep adding to it. I text myself through the days thoughts about it if I am away from my computer and add it to the doc later.
Then, I go back up to that first page and start writing my intro, which always leads to my conclusion. So i write both. I think it’s because in that moment, in my intro I am writing what I wanna tell you about and at the same time thinking about what I want a reader to get from it, so the conclusion writing is me basically being like “What do I want someone to feel after reading?” and then as time goes on I fill in the blanks. I start grabbing from those thoughts on the second page, and at the same time adding to them. Expanding on the ones that fit and matter and rejecting the ones that I thought did, but don’t.
At some point, I start reading the whole piece and asking myself if it feels enough, the answer is usually no so I overtalk and overexpand on my thoughts. For me, it’s always better to talk more and edit down later.
I keep reading, re-reading, adding in thoughts from that page AND adding more thoughts to that page. Over and over until it feels like a full picture and I’ve said probably way more than I needed but — at least it’s all out. In that doc, for me to look at, the thoughts out of my mind and onto the page creating this full and somewhat tangible picture of what was in my mind just a few days before.
Then I edit down, BUT whatever I take out I don’t delete, I just drag it down to that thoughts page and leave it there. Then once I have met my word count, all the thoughts are intact and not extra, I feel like what i presented in my intro has been read and felt all the way through —I ’m done.
I move all those extra thoughts into a doc of their own with the same title of the piece but with “:Extras” at the end. I don’t usually have to go more than one round of edits, if that, on a piece I write, but, if my editor has notes guess what? It’s usually on something I originally had in the piece but took out because I thought I was talking too fucking much. So I open up that “:Extras” doc, pop it over and expand, do a little more tweaking and it’s done.
I usually delete both docs when the piece is published for the sake of mind and doc clutter, but now I do a thing on my substack where I talk through the things I took out or my editor took out and chat about them there, sorta like the “Bonus Extras” on your favorite DVD.
But yeah, thats how I write. Add in music, me watching films in between it all, closing my computer a million times ‘cos nothings coming to me, and sometimes completely avoiding it until 2AM and you got a peek into my process. <3
Comments
i love everything about this, thank you.
i have found things that work well for me – i write right away in the morning (but i don’t have to write every day – i just find it extraordinarily difficult to write after i’ve left the stillness of the early morning); no noise of any sort; caffeine is a must – but i’ve also learned that, when i have a writing ROUTINE, i often find the writing serving the routine rather than the routine serving the writing, so i try to avoid establishing any rules for myself. i think it’s amazing if routines and rituals work for others, though, and i love seeing the varieties of experience here!
How cool to get a peek at your processes!
Heathers is my favorite. “ oh, the tweets my son socks has tweeted!“
Love to see the variety in everyone’s techniques! And how some people have different methods for writing for work vs. writing for personal/creative reasons. I’m an academic and view manuscript writing as part of my job, so I don’t have a special routine for that, but I also write poetry and have had the same poem-writing routine for several years. It’s kind of similar to Dani’s. I wake up early, make a cup of masala chai with oat milk, sit down with my poetry notebook and pen (a Pilot G2 0.38mm) either on my floor couch or outside on my back porch, and write a poem. Sometimes it’s a new poem, more often it’s a draft of an existing poem. Sometimes I change one word or add one line and that’s my writing for the day. I think it works because it’s low pressure – as long as I look at a poem and stare off into the distance about it, I feel like writing happened. My poetry notebook is a three-ring binder, each draft goes on its own three-hole-punched page of printer paper, and drafts belong to the same poem are paperclipped together. It’s a weird little system but it works for me!