My Writing Process

Dear Price-Haggling Ocelots,

Here's an introduction into my self-destructive, unproductive writing process:


1. Great awesome idea pops into your head. You rush to a pen and a piece of paper to scribble it down.

2. The creative floodgates are open and you can't stop scribbling. You add backstories, subplots, lists of characters, memorable scenes, lines of dialog, and a mishmash of additional ideas that form a rudimentary plot.

3. After a few weeks, there's a gnawing feeling that you really need to actually WRITE this story. So begins the laborious process.

4. Oh God, you think, how you hate writing. This is HARD! It was so much easier when you were just writing down ideas in your chicken scratch.

5. You come up with a title. You agonize over it even though it doesn't really matter yet. You settle on one you think is pretty good. It's not too direct, not too abstract. It's even sort of funny.

6. That title really sucks.

7. You run in a plot hole the size of Spain. But you muster some optimism and soldier on. You can fix it later.

8. Around fifteen or twenty thousand words, you still think you have a nice idea. You're surprised it's lasted this long. You even find an interesting side story to investigate. You come with a few more bits of good dialog. You're on a friggin' roll.

9. You're blocked. Not creatively. You've known what the story was supposed to be from the very beginning. No, you just can't WRITE anymore. It's driving you insane and you find every opportunity to procrastinate. You even write an outline, tricking yourself into thinking that it is just as productive as writing the novel itself.

10. You realize that you have a major problem. This story isn't long enough for a novel. You also begin to think that the whimsical original idea you had is neither whimsical nor original.

11. Oh God, this plot is hideous. It blows the big one.

12. You're about halfway done and start rereading what you've written, which is lifeless and dull. You realize—for the fifty second time—that you are an irredeemable failure as a writer.

13. You give up.

14. Repeat Steps 1 to 13.



Once in a while, I'll get past step 12 and have the will not to give up. But this happens very infrequently.

Happy New Year!

-Matt