At this stage, two very important things I'd like to share with you.

First, there might be two kinds of

writing and I'll call them conscious writing and unconscious writing.

So, conscious writing is very much when you are aware of what you're doing.

You're sitting there and you're going over and you're thinking, "Is this plausible,

how do I develop this character?", you know "Oh,

he's getting up at 3:00 a.m,

but I didn't even say he'd gone to bed."

This is conscious writing,

00:30

and then there's unconscious writing where you don't really know what's happening,

you're just typing it out as it comes to you.

Some things are brilliant,

and later on you'll realize some of

the things you thought were brilliant were not brilliant,

and some of the things you thought were a little stupid were actually amazing.

So unconscious writing is usually what people would

consider sort of like free form or like spontaneous writing,

whereas, conscious is editing.

So, if we accept that there are these two categories,

then what we're doing right now is,

01:02

in these six steps, we're

creating the foundation where you're going to be able to do both.

Where you're going to have a place where you can create work,

you can write unconsciously,

and where you can also edit,

and finalize things. I think it was T.S.

Eliot who said, "Often when writing is bad,

it's because the writer was conscious when they should have been unconscious,

and unconscious when they should have been conscious",

which without the context of what I just said doesn't make sense,

but you can get why that's hilarious.

01:35

The second thing I'd like to talk to you about,

is how I want you to be prepared to live with absolute chaos.

It's going to feel terrible.

Like this whole writing process does not feel great,

even for me now it feels pretty awful.

Actually, it's very stressful.

It's like being a very sensitive interior designer and

going to a construction site when all the workers are there,

and they're eating sandwiches,

and they're drinking giant cans of iced tea,

and there's garbage everywhere,

02:06

and it's just you, you just want to weep.

Because it's like you are months away from being able to do your thing,

which is to decide the paint,

and where to hang pictures,

and just to make it look really amazing.

So, but you get to spend most of your time with

these construction workers in the guts of the project.

So when surgeons work it's blood, and things moving,

and it's not like working on a sketch from Grey's Anatomy.

So just get used to the fact that you're going to be in the goal,

02:39

in the trenches, and nothing's going to feel like it's working probably.

There will be moments of sunshine where a sentence comes out very well

or something happens on the page where you know it's not going to really change.

But most of it is,

it's not going to feel good and you're going to feel like you're failing.

This is where most writers just stop because they're like I'm not a writer,

it's just not going well, it's really hard.

That's what you're supposed to be feeling.

If you felt like it was great and it was going well all the time then

03:10

I'm not sure that you'd be really producing first rate work.

So be prepared for chaos,

be prepared for a constant sense of failure,

and that's what really, really makes you a writer.

It's not prizes, or publication, or money,

or great reviews, it's keeping going.

It's holding true when everything feels like it's going wrong,

and when everything's failing,

and you keep going, and that's really what makes you a writer.

And so those are the six steps.

And what I think you'll find is that when you follow them very closely,

03:42

you are not going to have any kind of difficulty with what to

write or when to write because everything is covered.

This foundation is something that you can use for years,

and years, and years to come,

and if it's something you are serious about then it's really

going to be the anchor in your creative life.

Another thing I'd like to add before we go on to the next segment,

which is about crafting characters, and managing plot,

and getting into the real technical side of writing,

is I want to remind you that writing is really an act of faith.

04:17

None of this is true.

None of this is happening in real life,

and you don't know if anyone's going to read it or be interested in it,

and all these chaos,

where is it all going to end.

So, it requires a massive amount of faith and

a willingness to just do it

regardless of whether you feel you'll be a success in the end.

So if you can just have faith and just do it,

and just know deep down that in the end it's all going to come out really well,

and that you serve the work rather than serving yourself,

04:49

then it's really going to go well.

I once asked Michael Cunningham, I said,

"How do you deal with editing,

and how do you deal with the process of writing?"

Because It's quite hard, and he said,

when he flicks through one of his books he can't tell the good days

from the bad days and so he said,

"You just clock in,

you put your time in,

you have faith that what you're writing is going to at some point work,

and be logical, and people are going to really like and it respond to it,

and that's all you have to do."

05:20

If you serve the work,

then you'll always be successful because you're

working for something outside of yourself rather than for yourself.

So, remember to have a great amount of faith that everything you're doing is at

some point going to come together and be exactly what needs to be.

It may not be as you imagined it,

it may be completely different,

the story may be different,

the characters may have decided to do other things,

but if you were following the six steps and you had faith,

something wonderful is going to happen at the end.

05:51

You may not tell the story you set out to,

but you will have told your story.

That's really something that can't be replicated

because years from now when you're dead and I'm dead,

you may have left somebody a house or Rolls Royce and that's lovely.

But, imagine years from now,

a hundred years in the future somebody finding your book, or your journal,

or your memoir and opening it and understanding how you felt,

like it's the history of how you feel,

06:22

it's the history of your life.

And then if they can respond to that,

you've just connected to someone in the future that you'll never meet.

That to me is really why we're doing this.

Mahmoud Al Swirke

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