Advice: Conception & Completion

Your writing has to start somewhere...end somewhere.

We ask our teachers...What is your advice to writers about how to move from conception to completion? What kinds of habits & habits of mind are needed?

 

Bill Donahue
Clear out a time to write and then make no excuses. Write at that time even if you feel zero inspiration. If you find yourself at an impasse, take a short walk around the block, no more than 15 minutes, then come back and resume writing.

Shanna Germain
The biggest tip I can offer is also the oldest one around: write. Just glue your ass to the seat & stay there. Whatever it takes you to get it done. I bribe myself with mochas & pretty jewelry, I sneak off to places where there is no Internet or other distractions, I set myself up with fake deadlines & then "forget" that they're fake...whatever it takes to make you do the work. Also there is no one, right way to go from start to completion. Some people only write one very solid draft, others make a million revisions, & still others do something in between. You have to learn your own process & the only way to do that is to write. A lot.

Rebecca Koffman
Lots of self-discipline is helpful. For those of us who have none, meaningful deadlines are useful. Arrange to meet a friend--a prodigiously productive friend--& swap work once a fortnight. Or tell your class that you'll turn in a story in two weeks. Make sure you get on the critique schedule. The idea is that you will suffer embarrassment or worse if you fail to produce. Spend an hour a day working on your story. Maybe you'll do it--maybe you won't. Maybe you'll do nothing for thirteen days but you will be thinking about your story--desperately casting about for ideas. Maybe something will start to coalesce. Don't talk about your idea. Don't tell anyone about it. If you do, you'll never feel urgently enough about it to write it down. The day before your deadline, sit down in your chair.  Disconnect the phone & the Internet. Maybe you still have no ideas. Write random sentences. When you like one, add a second sentence. Maybe you won't like any.  Choose one anyway & add a second sentence.  Whatever you do don't move away from the desk. When you have a few hundred words you might begin to feel a certain excitement. Maybe you won't. When you know exactly what your next paragraph will be , write the first few words of it--then take a break to walk around the block & unkink your aching back. As you walk you will have more ideas. Go straight back to your desk. Remember: don't talk about your piece until you have finished a first draft. Take it to your prodigious friend or to your class or critique group. Listen to their suggestions, or not. Tell them when you will have the rewrite for them. The rewrite is more important than the draft. Start the rewrite in a small way: fix the punctuation. It's a soothing process & will lead you gently to bigger changes. Trust yourself, especially when your impulse is to cut. Taking a work from conception to completion sounds orderly but it's a haphazard process.  It requires forcing yourself to stay in your seat.  It does not require inspiration.

Ariel Gore
You just have to work. Begin. Begin anywhere. And begin again. Let the process be messy. Have a good 75% percent belief & confidence in what you're doing. The other 25% can be terrified & doubtful. That terror is rich, too. So you begin, you are 75% confident, & you know you are working because you love the world (rather than working because you want to impress your fault-finding, critical mother). Finally, you refuse to abandon the project. The project will be a really shitty & ungrateful child at times, but still you refuse to abandon it.

Marc Acito
I don't think writing is a matter of discipline so much as obsession. The manuscript is like a lover who tortures you, but you still can't stop yourself from coming back. When in doubt, write about what pisses you off.

Kathleen Halme

I think of all writing as practice. It takes pressure away from pushing work-in-progress to completion before the poem has found its way. I don't think any mature writer would work only when inspired any more than a concert pianist or ballet dancer would. Discipline is such an unpopular concept in American culture, but it's absolutely necessity for learning an art. "As long as it takes" is one of my writing mantras. Most of my poems ask for dozens of drafts. If I'm working on an especially resistant piece I usually put it aside for a few weeks, months, or years; invent exercises for myself; or concentrate on other work-in-progress Giving attention to interests besides poetry--ethnography , evolutionary biology, visual art--always gives me new ways to think about and make poems.

Liz Prato

Think about a time when you were really productive in your writing. What time of day was it? What was the atmosphere? How long did you have to write? Try to recreate those circumstances as much as possible. I’ve realized that I’m incredibly productive on airplanes. Of course, I can’t just fly somewhere whenever I want to write, but I can seek out an atmosphere where there are few distractions: no phone, no email, no chores. Nothing to focus on but what I have in my bag.