This is a very refreshing piece, Joshua. I'm suspicious anytime someone gives "definitive" advice on how to be a writer - as if there is only one process to share highly individaul unique experiences with the world. That's cool your mentor was able to see through that and emphasized investing in your life experiences.
Indeed, Trevor, at least of all the advice I’ve ever seen, no “definitive” advice applies for every writer or all of the time. Sometimes passive voice or an adverb is just what’s called for. Sometimes you shouldn’t kill your darling — there’s a reason you liked the idea so much in the first place. Et cetera.
Thanks for reading and sharing my piece! I hope you’ll take a look at a thing or two else here at Singular Dream. A good, free place to start is the short story “Away,” about an AI who goes “on vacation.”
I'm totally with you on this one. 'Write every day' is possibly the worst advice for a genuine writer. By 'genuine' writer I mean - as you said - the immense amount of time we spend not writing but imagining. I think you said you spent a lot of time thinking about your story before you actually wrote any of it. Just the same for me. I will definitely 'think' every day, but actually 'transcribe' it - no.
That word 'transcribe' is a better way of looking at it. If the advice is 'transcribe' every day then that is definitely bollocks. If by 'write' we mean 'the entire creative process' - which also includes meditation/imagining time, then yeah, if you are not doing that every day you are definitely not a creative writer. But the transcription process is only the end result of the creative process (some of which, yes, is going on unconsciously - i.e. during the 'fallow' periods).
Another point which these somewhat patronising people miss when they say write every day is mental health issues. I for example have lived with serious fluctuating depression for the last 35 or so years (plus a dissociative condition), so there are times when the idea of being forced to sit down and write seems like torture. Then there are times when not having written anything for ages also leads to unhappiness.
I think it's the inferior writers who write something down everyday. The quality of their stuff must be awful - precisely because less thinking time has gone into it. Probably full of continuity errors too...
Evelyn, as I said in the reflection, I just think it’s “different strokes for different folks.” I’m sure there are good writers who “transcribe” every day. And good writers who don’t. And good writers who, like me, say to themselves, “I’m going for a long hike today, and I’m not going to think once about writing.”
As you said, some things happen in the subconscious mind. Time spent daydreaming and imagining is not necessarily wasted. In fact, the more “creative” your writing is, the more fruitful a “lazy” pursuit like daydreaming tends to be. You come back to the page with a lot of new ideas to try out.
People want to construct dogma around “who’s a writer.” I think it’s pointless and silly. If you’re always drawn to the page eventually, you are a writer of some kind. So don’t worry about whether you are, and think instead about what process works for you.
I've gotten a few surprised comments when I give similar advice -- let yourself be fallow sometimes, live and let yourself winter, do a crop rotation and come back to writing (especially if it feels painful!) -- but to me it feels so intuitive. Nice to hear I'm not the only one, especially not the only one using gardening metaphors, haha.
:D Aya, it’s nice to hear I’m not the only one, too!
I think there’s stigma attached to the idea of a writer not writing. It’s probably because it’s an artistic pursuit, thus self-motivated, thus assumed to be a perpetual motion machine of some sort. If you’re not doing it every moment you could be doing it, then you must be insufficiently motivated (“not a real writer,” in other words).
Point of comparison: teachers are initially drawn to teaching by the simple love of it, and that will keep them there a long time, so they’re expected to accept any treatment in order to keep doing it. “What do you mean, you’re leaving teaching because you barely earn a living doing this, you’ll never be able to buy a nice home or pay off your student loans, the school year keeps getting longer, politicians are scapegoating you, parents on the warpath are vilifying you, and no one trusts you to do your job like the educated professional you are? Don’t you still want to teach? What about the kids?”
If you want unquestioned time off in America, do what you do first and foremost for the money. No one ever asks stockbrokers why they’re taking a vacation. ‘Murica!
This is a very refreshing piece, Joshua. I'm suspicious anytime someone gives "definitive" advice on how to be a writer - as if there is only one process to share highly individaul unique experiences with the world. That's cool your mentor was able to see through that and emphasized investing in your life experiences.
Indeed, Trevor, at least of all the advice I’ve ever seen, no “definitive” advice applies for every writer or all of the time. Sometimes passive voice or an adverb is just what’s called for. Sometimes you shouldn’t kill your darling — there’s a reason you liked the idea so much in the first place. Et cetera.
Thanks for reading and sharing my piece! I hope you’ll take a look at a thing or two else here at Singular Dream. A good, free place to start is the short story “Away,” about an AI who goes “on vacation.”
I'm totally with you on this one. 'Write every day' is possibly the worst advice for a genuine writer. By 'genuine' writer I mean - as you said - the immense amount of time we spend not writing but imagining. I think you said you spent a lot of time thinking about your story before you actually wrote any of it. Just the same for me. I will definitely 'think' every day, but actually 'transcribe' it - no.
That word 'transcribe' is a better way of looking at it. If the advice is 'transcribe' every day then that is definitely bollocks. If by 'write' we mean 'the entire creative process' - which also includes meditation/imagining time, then yeah, if you are not doing that every day you are definitely not a creative writer. But the transcription process is only the end result of the creative process (some of which, yes, is going on unconsciously - i.e. during the 'fallow' periods).
Another point which these somewhat patronising people miss when they say write every day is mental health issues. I for example have lived with serious fluctuating depression for the last 35 or so years (plus a dissociative condition), so there are times when the idea of being forced to sit down and write seems like torture. Then there are times when not having written anything for ages also leads to unhappiness.
I think it's the inferior writers who write something down everyday. The quality of their stuff must be awful - precisely because less thinking time has gone into it. Probably full of continuity errors too...
Evelyn, as I said in the reflection, I just think it’s “different strokes for different folks.” I’m sure there are good writers who “transcribe” every day. And good writers who don’t. And good writers who, like me, say to themselves, “I’m going for a long hike today, and I’m not going to think once about writing.”
As you said, some things happen in the subconscious mind. Time spent daydreaming and imagining is not necessarily wasted. In fact, the more “creative” your writing is, the more fruitful a “lazy” pursuit like daydreaming tends to be. You come back to the page with a lot of new ideas to try out.
People want to construct dogma around “who’s a writer.” I think it’s pointless and silly. If you’re always drawn to the page eventually, you are a writer of some kind. So don’t worry about whether you are, and think instead about what process works for you.
I've gotten a few surprised comments when I give similar advice -- let yourself be fallow sometimes, live and let yourself winter, do a crop rotation and come back to writing (especially if it feels painful!) -- but to me it feels so intuitive. Nice to hear I'm not the only one, especially not the only one using gardening metaphors, haha.
:D Aya, it’s nice to hear I’m not the only one, too!
I think there’s stigma attached to the idea of a writer not writing. It’s probably because it’s an artistic pursuit, thus self-motivated, thus assumed to be a perpetual motion machine of some sort. If you’re not doing it every moment you could be doing it, then you must be insufficiently motivated (“not a real writer,” in other words).
Point of comparison: teachers are initially drawn to teaching by the simple love of it, and that will keep them there a long time, so they’re expected to accept any treatment in order to keep doing it. “What do you mean, you’re leaving teaching because you barely earn a living doing this, you’ll never be able to buy a nice home or pay off your student loans, the school year keeps getting longer, politicians are scapegoating you, parents on the warpath are vilifying you, and no one trusts you to do your job like the educated professional you are? Don’t you still want to teach? What about the kids?”
If you want unquestioned time off in America, do what you do first and foremost for the money. No one ever asks stockbrokers why they’re taking a vacation. ‘Murica!