Writing About Writing

The hardest part of writing for me is getting started. As I open up Word on my laptop and sit down to begin my document, I suddenly feel as though I need to do the dishes… or wash my dog… or perhaps the toilets are due for a good cleaning.

Is it really that bad? How can something that I love so much be so arduous at the same time? It’s odd because leading up to it I truly enjoy the “getting ready process”. I like to get my cup of coffee and lay out my notebook with all of my random scribbles and then nestle into a good, upright chair as I get started.

I enjoy working in a peaceful, creatively charged space because I find that, for me, a pleasant environment helps to bring my words to the surface. The setting is not a deal breaker, but it helps. When I’m at home that usually means I’m on my screened-in porch that overlooks the woods behind our house or if I’m somewhere else that may mean I’m sitting outside a café, enjoying a cup of coffee while people watching and writing my thoughts out. It’s funny, people and movement and the sounds of nature don’t bother me at all. As a matter of fact, sometimes the daydreaming that I do while watching the folks walk by or hearing the chirping of the birds gets my creative juices flowing.

Ironically, it’s music that annoys me when I’m writing anything academic.

I sometimes find myself at Panera Bread wondering if I can possibly bring myself to ask the staff to turn the music down because, “can’t you see I’ve been trying to finish this paragraph for the last hour but I can’t stop singing the catchy tunes playing over the speakers?” Sometimes I feel like it’s a conspiracy.

Either way, that pretty much sums up my ideal scenery for writing.

However, that’s not always the reality.

More often than not, I end up at my kitchen table attempting to concentrate on my work, as random children (okay, maybe not so random) come up to me every few moments to explain how vital it is that they have a snack at once, for fear that they could starve to death or that their sister stole their Barbie and they demand immediate retribution or how it's necessary that I come outside and build a tree house for them right away (because I carry a drill in my back pocket, of course).

That last one is an actual request that I received while trying to complete my final project last week. But I digress…

As I begin the writing process, I immediately set up my document to MLA standards, adjusting margins, font, headers and page numbers. I just don’t feel like I can begin until the document is formatted correctly.

I am then faced with the task of trying to come up with a sentence that doesn’t sound like the opening line to a Star Wars movie. And trust me, that’s not easy. But I make it work.

The introduction is usually the hardest part for me but once I get that done, the rest seems to flow at a somewhat steady pace… unless I get distracted. Again. And every time I get distracted or something else takes precedence, only to come back to my writing, it takes some time to get my mind back in the game. 

I approach the writing process in a few different ways to keep the momentum going. I work my thoughts into the text as I’m thinking through them, even if I’m not exactly sure how all of my ideas correlate to the thesis, I get everything onto paper so I can see it in front of me. Then, when I’ve finished a paragraph, I go back through and read it aloud to see how it sounds, editing and revising before I go on to the next one.

I also tend to keep a running list of ideas or random sentences at the bottom of my document so I can come back to them later and either insert them somewhere or get rid of them altogether. Warning: doing this will sometimes make it appear that you have achieved the minimum page requirement, making you want to jump up and down with joy, when in fact, you haven’t.

Also, instead of going straight through the document, I find myself going back and forth through the paper to revise different areas as I’m writing because the continuation of writing brings others thoughts to mind that expand or elaborate on previous ideas.

In the end, my conclusion tends to be a summary of my paper with a bang! Or perhaps a thud. Either way, this is when I have drink. Or take a nap, one of the two.

All kidding aside, I do find it interesting how something that I truly enjoy can be so difficult at times but it’s also really neat to see the development and growth that the text goes through as I move through the revising and editing process. The satisfaction that I feel when doing the final read through at the end is rewarding and makes it all worth it, right?