The writing process is not entirely awful
In which I take a break from complaining about it.
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Before today’s newsletter, an announcement: I’m doing an In Writing Creative Hour this Sunday at 10am GMT, and would love you to join me. If you’re new around here, the Creative Hour is a Google Meet get-together that I try to do a couple of Sundays a month (timings vary, so don’t worry if 10am doesn’t work for you). We meet online, say hello, and then write for the best part of an hour in companionable silence; think of it as a virtual library environment, just with a bit more moral support from your In Writing community. It’s a very pleasant way to get some work done at the weekend.
It’s for paying subscribers only, so if you’d like to join, do upgrade your membership and look out for an email first thing on Sunday, when I’ll send out the link.
Sometimes I worry that I’ve carved a career out of complaining about writing. It’s so hard; it forces me to confront my own shortcomings, again and again; I’d rather scroll through Instagram or watch TV – let’s call the whole thing off.
I’m not the only one. For those who write for a living, complaining about it is the hobby of choice. Still, every now and again, in the process of making In Writing, I come across someone who makes me feel a little ashamed of my attitude – like the novelist Maggie O’Farrell, for example. Here’s what she said about writing when she came on the podcast:
It’s graft, but enjoyable graft. I don’t really understand the people who say, ‘I hate it, it’s so difficult, it’s so awful, I’m so tortured.’ I always think, well, don’t do it then! Go and do something else. You’ve got a job where you can sit at home in your pyjamas talking to your imaginary friends – I mean how bad can it be really? Try saying that to a coal miner.
Ugh. She’s right.
I was also reminded of this when I went to see George Saunders speaking in London in October. His enthusiasm and optimism on the subject reminded me that I love writing – in fact I felt, even while I was enjoying listening to him, that I couldn’t wait to get home and get on with it. Afterwards, I wrote about it in this newsletter, and Heather, who had also attended the event, responded with this comment: ‘One of the things I really took away from the talk was the sense of fun that he encouraged everyone to have with their work. Fun isn't talked about enough as a key component of making stuff.’
Of course, this is true – it’s the reason why many of us get hooked on creative pursuits as children. And actually, seeing it that way as an adult can help to ease some of the pressure we put on our work. As part of my MA I took a module in screenwriting; because I’d never done it before and didn’t expect to be any good at it, I felt completely free to enjoy myself. Writing a script for that course was so much fun that I didn’t consider it work at all. Maybe we’d all benefit from occasionally writing out of our comfort zones in that way – attempting a poem if you’re not a poet, or a bit of memoir if you’ve never tried personal writing.
Another benefit of writing is that on a good day, it can provide escapism. I woke up feeling a bit sad on Tuesday morning, but I muted my phone and climbed into my work. I spent three hours totally absorbed in a project, and realised afterwards that I hadn’t once thought about anything else. I felt better about myself, happier and less anxious than I had before I sat down. That’s the effect of flow, and it’s really quite miraculous.
Flow, if you’re not familiar with the concept, was identified by Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It’s the state we enter when work is going well – when external distractions fade away, time becomes amorphous and we feel a deep satisfaction that can even verge on euphoria. It’s not reserved for writing; I also get it from cooking, and I think gardening, yoga, tennis, doing lab experiments, working out tax calculations, designing bridges, decorating cakes, flying planes or having sex might all do the same trick, depending on what your interests are.
Csikszentmihalyi identified certain conditions that are necessary for flow. You have to be doing something you really enjoy or find interesting. You also have to be doing it at a level that is just challenging enough to require concentration and push you to increase your skill, but not so challenging that you feel frustrated and disempowered.
If you can achieve flow on a regular basis, he thought, that’s a happy life. (All the more reason to join the In Writing Creative Hour this Sunday.) ‘When we choose a goal and invest ourselves in it to the limits of our concentration, whatever we do will be enjoyable,’ he writes in Flow, the book he published in 1990. ‘And once we have tasted this joy, we will redouble our efforts to taste it again. This is the way the self grows. … Flow is important both because it makes the present instant more enjoyable, and because it builds the self-confidence that allows us to develop skills and make significant contributions to humankind.’
I’m incredibly grateful to be able to write; it’s shaped my whole life and provided comfort, income and a lot more besides. Still, sometimes it’s so hard that I just want to put the TV on and eat crisps instead. What can I say? Love is complicated.
Do you have any tricks to get into a flow state? And what has writing done for you? Let’s have a love-in in the comments.
For new subscribers, two places to check in today: tell me who you are, where you’re joining us from and what interests you here:
And use this thread to chat about any writing problems, share recommended reading, and generally get to know the community:
I look forward to seeing some of you on Sunday. Good luck with your writing this week!
So interesting... Flow, play, finding it hard, or easy! I come at this mainly as an artist and illustrator (and I would like to write some books to illustrate). I definitely find my flow state by drawing, and I recognise the way that getting into flow state can totally pull you out of a funk. I’ve been learning a bit about the nervous system, and how procrastination is really a way of avoiding feelings we don’t want to feel. I’m learning that it’s all about the way you talk about your task (out loud, or to yourself). So every time I catch myself saying “it’s so hard!!” Or “I’m stuck” I catch myself and try and remind myself I’ve done it before; I CAN do it, and I actually do enjoy it. And remind myself of everything I have learned. It’s been really helping! If that fails, I trick myself into starting by saying “I’ll just do 5 mins”. I find procrastination endlessly fascinating!
I appreciate it when writers are honest about how difficult the process is, because it makes me feel less alone in this. I heard somewhere that because we’re surrounded by finished products, the efforts leading up to completion are somewhat hidden from us. As a result, all we think about is the finished product instead of the work it takes to get there, and if what we produce doesn’t measure up to it, we’ve failed. That really resonated with me.
For my own writing process, it seems I’ve had more frustrations than breakthroughs, but I keep pushing through it, and I’m almost done with my draft, so I guess it’s a success overall.
I LOVE the flow state. The Pixar film “Soul” captures this perfectly, it truly feels like you’ve ascended into another plane and it’s so euphoric coming out of it. I’m not sure how to tap into it at will, though 🤔 Once I figure it out, I’ll be unstoppable.