| I have had an on-off relationship with writing for most of my life. The unintuitive truth about writing is that the writing happens before the sentences happen. Another way people make this point is by saying “writing is really just revising”. I think it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that writing is the second step in a linear process, the first of which is “finding out what to say, or coming up with an idea or opinion”. No. Simply write. If you can’t think of anything, write “I have writer’s block” then write the next random sentence that comes to your head. If necessary, just write down an amusing string of random words. Follow it up with another. If possible use a pen and paper, and most of all, try to make it a ritualistic practice. Whether it’s once a day, once a week, or once a month the important thing is to just keep at it even if you have nothing to write, even if it’s an exercise in producing garbage. For every great text out there there’s an ocean of miscellany that went into the trash bin or manifested as (e.g. hacker news comments). You’ll often come to something significant during the act of writing. The only thing you really need to master is getting into a state in which you don’t censor yourself, you’re comfortable with facing your deep buried demons, with your own ignorance, and your desires. Once you do that, the content will flow naturally. Then put your editor hat on and decide what to publish, what should remain private and what should be destroyed. Thinking is conducted through material processes, like putting a pen to paper or staring at birds. Ever since Descartes, there’s an error people tend to make in divorcing thought/their mental life from their embodied existence—the two are not separable. When it comes to writing, remember Nike’s motto. As an illustration of this point, none of the sentences in this post were floating around in my head or formulated until I started typing it out. If you had asked me to dictate a response on this topic it would have been entirely different. |
There is a risk very few of the supporters of "writing as a way of thinking" talk about, and that is you write what during writing feels the right thing to write, but not what you wanted to write.