Write Now, Edit Later
"Don't get it right, just get it written". James Thurber. This is a quote that is often bandied about with regard to creative writing. I was watching a documentary last night about a guy trying to find financing for an independent film he was making and a variation of this philosophical statement came up. I suppose that the reason it is so commonplace is because it is true. All writers at some point find themselves procrastinating to a greater or lesser degree. While writing this simple blog post, I’ve been distracted by incoming email and a message notification from my phone. Sometimes I will draw the curtains in my office so I don’t end up aimlessly staring out of the window at life’s rich pageant or the bird on Mrs Coletart’s roof. Because I am an organised person and like to plan, sometimes I focus too much upon the detail of my writing, rather than just getting the raw ideas down. Hence even the most simplistic of blog posts can at times take an hour or more to get written.
One of the first things I learned when writing is not to correct your work as you go along. If you do, you end up obsessively re-writing the same sentence over and over again. It is very inefficient and far less enjoyable. Hence "don't get it right, just get it written" is such good advice. Especially so if your writing style is more of a stream of consciousness. I tend to favour bullet points when creating a post. These can be used for ideas or an argument and then counter argument. Later, they can then be developed into paragraphs or combined to make wider points. I also create a lot of draft documents. If an idea comes to me then I open a new document in Google Drive, give it an obvious title and then add a few points that are relevant or simply write the original thought(s) that came to me. This way, good ideas have a better chance of coming to fruition and becoming fully formed blog posts.
A dilemma I often wrestle with is exactly how much to write on any given subject. There are different schools of thought on this and it very much depends who you are writing for. Commercial writing is usually far more targeted and specific. Hence brevity and the use of easy to understand language is important. I prefer a more substantive approach and enjoy using my vocabulary, creating metaphors and making obscure pop culture references. I like my arguments to be clear and backed up with supporting data. However, there’s longform writing and then there’s just being verbose and I worry that I drift too often into the latter. Thankfully, this is why we edit and as a writer one has to be ready to make hard choices with regard to what stays in the final version of your post and what gets cut out. I am currently trying to hone my editing skills, to be more ruthless and produce more succinct posts.
With all this in mind, I am going to do some experimentation with my writing over the next few months, to see if I can produce shorter posts and to also try and speed up my writing process. But it can be hard to break yourself of certain habits. For example I have an odd attitude towards writing three paragraphs or less in a post. I feel that it is too insubstantial and even lazy. Yet other bloggers I know produce concise and on point material and I don’t think the same of them. So I’m going to try to do things differently. This has the added benefit of making the actual process of writing a little more interesting and adding a sense of variety. Because writing like any other task, takes focus and discipline and at times can be a chore. Trying to transfer the thought, idea or point that is abundantly clear in your mind, onto the virtual page is not as easy as it sounds. But that is also part of the fun. It also brings me back to the James Thurber quote. "Don't get it right, just get it written". Make this your mantra.
