Processing

So it turns out that I can write a book and also do other things, but writing a book plus anything else equals total disaster for the rest of my life. The last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on the new column for Redbook (the first one will appear in the January 2010 issue), so I neglected some other matters. Like remembering to eat, or talking to people. Also writing in this here blog.

And. And I just stared into space for about fifteen minutes while I tried to think of something else to write. Listen. I know you didn’t need to know that. I realize you are not reading this as I write. I thought I’d take you along for a minute on my mind journey. If it’s going to go blank for a bit, why shouldn’t you know? Don't you want to join me in my fugue state?

When I say I spent the last couple of weeks writing my Redbook column, what I mean is that I spent one week hiding under the duvet insisting that I have nothing worthwhile to say to anyone, and another week hiding under the duvet, emerging to tap out a few words, running around screaming that I’m a worthless hack, and then diving headfirst back under the duvet. You think I’m exaggerating, don’t you? I can see it on your face. All right, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, shut up.

I don’t know if writing is this way for anyone else, but when I’m faced with a deadline, the few days beforehand are torture. (And yet I could never get anything done without a deadline. And meeting a deadline is an unparalleled relief.) The only way I can get anything done is the following: I must 1) wear a hooded robe or sweater, hood up, and 2) put a blanket over my head, so as to create another hood over the hood, and if that’s not enough I 3) close my eyes while writing. Is that not utterly pathetic? I have to squirrel myself away in a cocoon of emotional comfort so that I can (sometimes tearfully) bang out the last few words I require to get the job done. But for whatever reason, this works for me.

I mentioned some of my bizarre habits to my Redbook editor (on whom I may have a burgeoning girl-crush—but I won’t admit to anything, except secretly when I whisper it in my pillow), and she seemed unfazed. She said brightly, “Well, that’s your process!”

So I am not insane. I have figured out my process. And you? Do you have one? Come on, admit it.

Comments

[Daddy Scratches]

Oh GAWD, can I relate.

Hell, I'm in agony just trying to come up with something to write in this "Comment" block. I feel all the eyes of all the writers in the world looking at me and the worthless drivel I type as I'm typing it and it makes me want to highlight the whole shebang and hit the "Delete" key and crawl under my desk so I can contemplate pursuing a career in hamburger-flipping or some other suitable vocation that doesn't involve writing things that obviously suck more than anything has ever before sucked in the history of sucking.

So, yeah, like that.

[LPC]

Anything horrifying can be mitigated by calling it a process. Luckily.

[Spring]

My process is SO MUCH LIKE YOURS but with less hiding and more not writing. And some walking around swearing to anyone who asks that I'm NOT A WRITER, I HAVEN'T WRITTEN IN WEEKS, HOW COULD I BE A WRITER?

But still. I want to write. I want to do it more than I want to do anything else. Which is mostly to say that I don't want to do anything at all.

[Anita]

Have you read Anne Lamont's Bird by Bird? Is there any other process besides what you just described?

I'm an academic, I have to write constantly and it's absolutely no different. it's why we have conferences, so there is an actual deadline to do something.

Read Bird by Bird. It's great.

[Holly]

Okay, I love her too now that she said, 'Well that's your process!'

Process? What is my process?

Did you have food with you under the duvet? Portable DVD player?

Oh yeah, process, ummm?

Wait, what was the question?

Ummm, to distract people enough so they forget what deadline means?

[Erin @ Fierce Beagle]

My process involves ignoring, putting off and denying. Then when the deadline is threateningly close, I do all of that some more, but then I don't sleep because the painful anxiety keeps me up. And that's pretty much when the extraction must take place (you know, the extraction of words and coherent thoughts on a digital page).

It's not unlike the time I had to have my gallbladder removed.

[Drongo]

My process involves organizing my closet, drinking whiskey and watching bowling tournaments on television. And, apparently, reading your blog.

"A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." -Thomas Mann

[DiaryofWhy]

I wish I needed a process. My life is sadly deadline-free, and so my "process" goes something like: have an idea for a blog entry. Don't write about it, hoping that a better idea will come along. When it doesn't, give in and write about that Halloween thing that happened over a week ago, now that it is completely irrelevant and nobody cares anymore. Annnnnndd publish!

[zan]

And now you have an answer for the question that will inevitably be asked at every single reading you will ever go to in your entire life.

[mosey along]

I wrote about this a while back myself. Fear paralyzes me when I have a task to accomplish. I stalk up and down the hallway, drink entire pots of coffee and eat multiple bags of Pirate Booty while procrastinating ad nauseum. And then once I sit down to actually do it, the work flows smoothly like buttah and I kick myself for all the angst.

[Swedish Pankakes]

My process involves thinking, thinking, thinking until I have it all perfectly in order and then I sit at my laptop, play Mah Jong Solitaire for awhile until I realize it's late and I should go to bed and commit to more thinking because obviously my thoughts weren't compelling enough to translate into words on paper.

[Anne]

I talk to myself a lot when I write. Hense why I don't write in public - afraid the men in the white coats will drag me away. My neighbors at my last aprtment complex thought I was really strange becuase I'd stare out the kitchen window and mumble to myself.... No, I'm not spying on you! I'm THINKING!!!!

[Hope]

I don't write, but I have projects for work and my process is to wait until the last possible moment, making sure to take time to Facebook about not doing the project and pretty much do ANYTHING else I can before cranking it out in record time and then wondering why I procrastinated so long because it wasn't really all that bad.

I continue to do this 'process' for pretty much everything. It's always fine at work, but in every day life, I wait for things to blow up before dealing with them.

[Jamie]

I'm not a writer but I do a similar thing with designing. I'll sit at my desk all day pretending to work while instead wasting time, meanwhile FREAKING OUT about all the projects I have to do. And then with one hour left at work I'll kick ass and take names and get it all done in the nick of time. It's weird and probably bad, but it seems to work for me.

[schmutzie]

My process involves sitting around in my underwear, beating out 1000 words, rewarding myself with food, sniffing my armpits, taking a bath, beating out 1000 words, etc. I make writing way sexy.

[Erin]

No, I don't have a process. I just started my very first blog last Friday and I might already be out of things to say. I also wear a hoodie with the hood up. And I stare out the window for so long that my eyes start to burn. I don't do it on purpose, sometimes I'm too stuck to blink.

I did read this great article in the WSJ Friday though, profiling a few great authors and how they work (google "WSJ how to write a great novel" in case the link doesn't work. There are a few fab ideas!. I personally love the post-it-note guy.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703740004574513463106012106.html

[Kristin Allen]

this was lovely and refreshing to read. I just got a babysitter and gave myself the gift of time to write and all the sudden I was like, "You are the biggest idiot Alive. You have nothing of note to say. Everything you've ever done in your whole life has amounted to nothing. Hurry, get back to cleaning the house and doing laundry because Then..THEN you will atleast have accomplished Something by taking care of everyone else. Who cares if you are still miserable? Who cares about your dreams?" And then I cry and think everyone around me hates me. But somewhere along the line, I pulled out of it. Thank God.And..what is Redbook? I suppose I could check that out with my writing time instead of writing....

[galyng]

My process is much like yours but I'm considering a new one. Author Kate DiCamillo recently said she gets up at 5 am and writes until about 7 a.m. because the internal voice that tells her she sucks, she's a terrible writer and shouldn't be writing at all, wakes up and then she has to stop. She writes 2 pages a day while her inner critic is still asleep.

The problem is, can I get my creative genius up at 5 a.m.? I don't think so.

[Heather (The Momshell Diet)]

Caffeinate. Eat some chocolate. Eat some more chocolate. Hide the chocolate. Tell self I can go find it again when I've finished writing.

[edj]

My process involves reading everyone else's blogs, obsessively checking FB, reading books, chatting online with my sister-in-law...and then freaking out. So it's related. Also I eat.

[Kristin Steiner]

My process consists of writing one sentence, checking Twitter, Facebook, blog stats etc. Writing another sentence, sending my husband a funny/naughty e-card. Writing another sentence, calling a friend to go for lunch. Writing another sentence and calling my mother (if that doesn't suck the creativity out of a person I don't know what does). Deleting everything I've written up until this point, then cleaning my entire house. And finally barfing out my entire assignment in a 30-45 minute period of rampant typing. Then I send it to my husband to read and habitually graze on high carb foods, waiting for him to ridicule me and shred the crap out of my most intimate thoughts. And he just says. "I like it. It's funny."

To this day I don't know if he's referring to my writing or the ecard. But I'm not brave enough to ask.

@BeingSuper

[hi kooky]

Lots of staring off into space, and chocolate chips.

(Bonus: I just discovered Reese's peanut butter chips (baking aisle). These PLUS chocolate chips = Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Experience for a fraction of the cost.)

[spoiledonlychild]

I too have spent many an hour in procrastination hell before actually putting words to computer screen. In fact, I'm procrastinating about a writing assignment right this moment. Until now, my "process" has just involved surfing the internet and hating myself. But maybe I'll try the blanket. Wonder what my coworkers will think.

[Kate F.]

Ha, makes me think of that old quote (attributed to Red Smith but often to others, too), "Writing is easy. You just sit down at the typewriter, open up a vein and bleed it out drop by drop." I first heard that from my most awesomely curmudgeonly old-school editor (the kind with a bottle of Wild Turkey and a coffee mug in his cabinet) and I've always loved it.

I'm actually a really fast writer once I stop procrastinating. But my process, I guess, is of procrastination until I get to a point where I am positive that there is no way I will be able to complete with assignment, at which point my stomach starts doing flips and I get really frantic and sweaty-palmed and then at the last possible moment I sit down and bang it out. Then, since I'm a journalist and there are generally lots of facts in the things I write, I spend the weeks leading up to publication in an agony of terror about possible mistakes. Only once the article has been out for a week or two and there haven't been any catastrophes can I fully relax. I'm sure this is great for my blood pressure.

I've often said that what I hate most about freelancing from home instead of working on staff at a magazine is that I no longer have the support of coworkers for the procrastination/self-loathing/writing cycle. We'd mostly go into each other's offices and whine about how screwed we were and how surely we'd be fired, then go write a couple paragraphs, rinse, repeat until the deadline was magically met. Now it's just me and CSI:NY reruns and self-loathing all by my lonesome!

[Kate House]

A process? Now THAT is a radical idea. Perhaps if I labeled the whining and the shuffling files, I would work better.

In the meantime, I believe a few of the previous commenters have hit it on the head: Food. While hiding under the duvet, eat vast amounts of the least healthy snack items you can find at a convenience store (since convenience stores are known to carry much junkier stuff than any real grocery store). This activity spawns a variety of other time-consuming activities, like stripping the sheets to wash off the crumbs and chocolate stains, talking about how much you'll need to exercise to get rid of the just-ingested calories, and perhaps if you are particularly determined, actually exercising. By the time all this is completed, the deadline is one hour away and you have no choice but to meet it. Plus the work fills up that 50 minutes it takes the dryer to properly fluff your duvet cover.