Transcripts
1. Introudactuion: It guys, if shale and I'm here today with another
writing video. In today's video I'm going
to be talking about how to find your writing process. It's very, very hard to
teach writing process. I mean, honestly it's impossible
to teach writing process because everyone's going to have different methods of
writing their book. I've done videos on my
writing process before, rather than coming on here and telling you how
to write a book, I thought it would be
more useful to talk about how to find your way
of writing a book. Because everyone's
gonna be different and it's going to change over time. And I have done a lot of videos where he
talked about letting go of any pressure or
preconceived notions about what writing process should
look like and what the best methods are because
there is no best method. There's just the best
methods for you, but I've never talked
about how to figure out what your best
methods are, right? For most people you're reading process isn't going
to stay the same throughout your entire life or the entire time you
spend creating. It's not really
something that you can just sit down and
know immediately. It's not something that you
can really just be like, oh, my writing process
is this, this, this, and it's a lot
of trial and error. But I think that these are just some questions you
can ask yourself to hopefully try and hone in on those methods that
will be best for you.
2. There's No Right Way: I guess I should
just open this with a point that I've talked
about in many videos. And it's when you're
trying to figure out your best methods for writing. The first step is letting
go of what you think you should do or
what other people are telling you you should do. People will judge these
things for no reason. I genuinely ask, why does it matter if someone else
doesn't align their books? Why does it matter if someone takes X amount of
time to write a book? Why does it matter anything? It doesn't it doesn't
affect you in any way. So why do you care
what some people still apparently have
opinions on these things. People sometimes
want their methods to be seen as the right ones
because they feel insecure. They want to feel
secure that they're doing it the right way, but there is no right way. The first step is
start from square one. Let go of wealth. This person told me to do this. This person told me to do this. This is what you're
supposed to do because there is no supposed to. It's just gonna be
what works for you.
3. What Motivates You?: The first thing to think
of is what motivates you, what makes you want to write. You may not know this
right off the bat, and this is gonna be
recruiting theme. But from now on, when
you find yourself motivated and you find yourself wanting to write and
you have the HLA. I need to sit down
and write right now what's causing that? Is it an external circumstance? You're like, Oh, I had
a lot of free time. And that gave me a lot of time to think and it made
me really want to write, or it wasn't, there was a
deadline and that really motivated me a little bit
of pressure, really helped. Was it certainly more internal? Oh, you know, I was in a really
calm Zen space maybe for these reasons or
maybe it was more like every time I felt
really motivated, it's because they've
had new experiences that really motivated me. Start taking note of these
things like when you're on a really high note of your
process and your feeling motivated and you want to
write what's causing that. If you can identify
what's motivating you, what's making you want to write. You can try to make
that a regular thing. So let's say you find that nano Rambo really motivates
you what maybe it would be good for
you to get involved in some kind of
writing community or writers group because
that community aspect really motivates you. I did a recent video
on kinda like the myth of motivation and why writing motivation isn't necessarily
all it's cracked up to be like it's not about finding
the inherited well within, it's more about creating the proper circumstances
that allow you to write. So try to identify those circumstances that are behind your wonderful
moments to motivate.
4. How Do You Think?: There are two. How did you tend to think, thinking about how you think metta thinking I think
is the term for that is a really beneficial practice when you're trying to find
your writing process. Nobody's going to work the same way because no one's
brain works the same way. It creativity is in many ways a mystical thing that's going to work differently for
different people at different times in their life. I'm a very
detail-oriented thinker, at least in regards to writing rather than a big
picture thinker, I don't get ideas
for big concepts or broad themes or broad
overarching plot. I get ideas for specific
little details, lines, images, specific
moments are seams. I'm working from little details outwards into figure
out the big picture. Other people might start big
picture of the basement, big concept and then they work in and they flush out
the little details. So people who tend to start from broad seemed broad ideas, broad concepts might be
able to do something like 0 draft where they write
a first draft really, really quickly and the
draft is very vague. It's almost just
like a long outline. Further drafts
progressively make the book more detailed
and more flushed out. That would work for that
type of thinker because those people work inwards. They start broad and work
in so they can start with the broadest type of draft that would basically
be impossible for me. I have to write a very
detailed complete first drafts because I work outwards, my starting points are the little details that
are within scenes. Not even just seems themselves, but details within scenes
a lot of the time. And so for me, starting vague doesn't work because that's the last thing
I understand about a story. I understand little
moments first and then I see how they fit into the bigger and
bigger picture. And the final thing that
clicks from his old, that was the theme of the book. Someone else might be like, Oh, this is my general
theme, general concept. And the last thing that
clicks for them is the little nuances that are happening in individual scenes. Understanding how you
think can clue you into the types of practices
that might be best for you.
5. Where Are You Struggling?: The next question
to ask yourself is, where are you struggling or
where do you struggle often? What are the recent
problems I've had with my writing times I got
stuck problems I had. And how can you create
tools and integrate tools into your writing process
to help you overcome this. So, for example, something that tripped me up for a
very long time was that I would start to get
really frustrated with the messiness and the
quality of my draft. By the time I was
finished the first draft, I hated it so much
that I didn't even want to edit it and
I just shoved it. The way that I fixed that was by implementing an
editing as I draft, that's been a really
helpful strategy for me. There people were
editing as they write is the worst
thing for them. One of the most important places to start when you're creating
your writing process, it's going to work for you
long-term is implementing strategies to try and fix
your most common problems. This may even happen on a
project to project basis. There may be a specific
problem you're having with a specific book, because every book is
going to be different.
7. Keep A Process Log: And keeping a journal of
your writing process. At least if you're in
this figuring out stage, you want to try to
be able to identify trends and what's worked
for you or not working, what's not worked
for you all the times you've had writer's
block, what caused it? How did you get out of it? What were the circumstances
around it when you were thriving the most and writing your best work and
loving writing the most. What were the circumstances
when you get out of a block? What usually helps you
get out of that block? It keeping a log
of these things, you don't have to
write on it every day. But when you're
having a problem, write down the problem
and what's causing it. And then when you
find a solution, write down the solution
and same thing when you're having those highs. This way, when you encounter
those blocks again, you can look back and see
what works for you in the past and see if any of
those solutions will work now. And at the same time,
if you're feeling just going to add
about your writing, you can look back and see
what caused you success in the past and try to
re-implement those methods.
10. Prioritize Effectiveness, Not Speed: To remember five is to
implement new practices based on their effectiveness,
not their speed. Once you know something
works for you, then you can adjust it in ways to make it faster
or more efficient. I started to discovery
writing again back in 2018, and I discovered wrote an apple and it took a very long time. It took 18 months, which
is the longest it's ever taken me to
draft a book though, I will say part of the
reason it took so long is because for the first
seven months of that, I was writing it as a
university project, so I wasn't able to get past
the first five chapters. But I think that it was really
important that I didn't worry about the
speed because I was trying to new method
I hadn't discovered, written a book in years. And so I didn't really want to worry about the
speed, like Yes, it was taking longer, but I was figuring
out my process. Now that I've discovery written two books in the
past four years, I've been able to find ways to make that process move
faster in the future. I don't think it would
take me 18 months to write a first draft again. But when you're trying
to new practice, you want to get a
feel for it and make sure it's effective
for you before you worry about how long it takes making writing process decisions
based only on how fast you write and not how effective they are for
you in terms of quality or like suitability to your
thinking and creativity style is a very likely way
to lead to burnout. You kind of need to figure out your effective methods before you can figure out
your fast methods. Find what works for you without worrying about how long it
takes to write the book. And once you know
what works for you, then you can tweak
that process if you want to make it faster
and more efficient. But I wouldn't try
working the other way. When I was younger, I used to think that a good writing process was
the fastest writing process. So I just found ways to write books the fastest
that I possibly can. And yes, I could drop the
book in one to three months, but it caused me so many
problems like burnout, hating my draft, a
ridiculous amount of editing that overwhelms me to the point that I had no
motivation to do it. So yeah, those methods
were fast and I thought that that meant that
they were good, but they weren't good. Speed that you write can certainly be important
for a lot of people, but I don't think it should
ever be the main priority. Find what works for you first and then refine
it to be quicker.
11. Be Practical: It would also just
think about what is practical for you right now. There may be writing methods that sound good and
sound appealing, but simply aren't practical for your lifestyle or
for your project. If you're trying to use
methods that aren't practical for the circumstances
of your life. Again, it's unlikely
that the work because they just don't fit the amount and type of time that you have or the resources that
are available for you. I used to write outside the house that was
really important for me. I would do most of my
writing outside the host. I found that that
mitigated distractions. I was able to get more words
w1 and focus a lot deeper. So I would write in coffee
shops or the library, then this thing happened
called there was a worldwide pandemic and that
no longer became an option. So I had to find ways to adjust and make that work for me and find ways to get
comfortable writing at home and feel like I could still be productive
writing at home. Sometimes there are
external factors that aren't ideal
that getting in the way as much as it is nice to just think
about the art. Sometimes there are
external circumstances that are going to affect what's
possible in practical for you, being realistic with yourself. You know how much time
you have, therefore, what is realistic in terms of your goals or if it's even realistic to have certain goals. I think is important form of
self-care and being gentle with yourself and not
expecting things of yourself that are simply
not practical right now.
12. Don't Try To Copy Someone's Process Exactly: It's October 8th. Don't
try to play copy cat. It is extremely,
extremely unlikely that another person's writing process will work for you exactly. Even though it can help to get inspiration from other people, see practices that other people do that might click for you, might see someone doing something that you
might be like, Oh, that's a really smart idea. I think that would work for me. But I wouldn't ever
worry about trying to copy someone's process
exactly because it's just so unlikely that the exact same process
will work for you again, because we're all different, we're already
different projects. We all have different
live will have different ways of thinking. Great to get inspiration
from other people. And sometimes something works really well for another person and hearing about that method, you're like, Oh, that's genius. I think that would work for me. It is about finding your own unique
processes, unique to you. I think everyone's going to have their own unique way
of doing things. Number nine, what do
you need right now? Your process is probably
going to change and I think it's important
to be adaptable. I've written many books in my written 11 over
30 short stories. And I haven't used the
same process twice, even for the short stories which are shorter and I've
written more of them. So you'd think I'd at least
use the same process. Now I do have my same
general process. It's always different
because every story and every book just
needs different things. And restoring every book has different problems, has
different challenges. I have different goals for them. And the idea develops if I
ended the people whose ideas seem to develop the
exact same way overtime at mine certainly don't. A bit fluffy how my
ideas happen, happen. They start from where they started and they
go, where they go. And I don't really all
that's gonna happen. We'll have said for I'm a
pretty intuitive right? Or other people are
more structural, May two things in
their specific way. Larry intentionally,
whereas I'm more intuitive, I feel like rather than
constructing the story, I'm following it like
the way that I feel about my ideas is
it's almost like the idea is hidden
behind a pain of fog and slowly but surely I'm clearing this and the fog
and it's coming into view. And it might start with, I might just clearly
one little section of it and see this
one bit really, really clearly, but the rest is still completely shrouded. And then the fun
way to think here, but I can't really see it. And eventually of
the four colors and I can see the whole
thing really clearly. So the way I feel about my
writing process is that it's more of an uncovering
than a constructing. For me, I always feel like
the story was always there, complete, full hidden
behind the fog. I was just uncovering it. Other people might
feel very differently. They might be like, yeah, I'm
building it piece by piece. And this is the way that I build my stories and it's
what I always do. And so maybe for some people, it's a lot more concrete
and they can follow the same sets every
time for me though, it's always gonna be different. Don't be afraid to change your writing process based on just what you feel you need. I especially find this
at the editing stage. Editing a book is
always going to be so different because every book is going to have
different problems that at least I find
I need to address. So I can't just be, interestingly do this,
this, this, this, this because the books need completely different
attention in different places
than a completely different problems and need
different things to fix. So I think it's really
important to be adaptable and implement new solutions whenever
you need them, rather than feeling like
you have to stick to the same process
every single time. Adopt, go with the
flow and implement new practices or trying new things based on
what you need now. And that's always
going to change. Like I said earlier, I
used to discovery, right? That I started out on him
and I started discovering. And again, being adaptable
is really important. I think that it's way more
important to be able to adapt and change based on
new problems that come up. It's not going to
be a static thing. Maybe for someone who writes
very similar types of stories and is a very logical
thinker and has the very, very stable mood, might be able to write in the exact same
way a reasonable time. But I think that
for most people, that's not realistic accepting that when you find
your writing process, It's not like you're funding
year forever writing process that's never
going to change. It's more something that's
going to keep shifting. May be constantly. Once you accept that, yeah, I'm going to have to
beat up old might have to change things as I go and every book will
require different stuff. It feels easier to go with the flow rather than
feeling like you have to stick to
this exact process that you've figured out.
14. Make It Fun: And finally, I said
this at the beginning, but literally the only wrong way to write a book is plagiarism. And you will find that you start to enjoy
writing more and you write better words when you stop caring
what other people think. At least I found that
when I stopped caring, what other people thought
about how I wrote my books, and I stopped feeling like there were rules I had to follow. That's when I started to love writing and enjoy writing more than I ever have
before in my life. And I've loved writing more than anything else in my
life since I was eight. There was a point
in my life where I lost the joy of it
when I was a child, obviously, I loved writing and I just did whatever I wanted
because I was a kid. And then I reached
a certain point in my mid to late teens. So many things got to me about feeling like I had to
take it seriously. I had to be professional, I had to be productive, I had to be efficient. I should've just been having
a good time and writing it. I started to enjoy writing fully and not feel stressed
and not constantly. Beat myself up about not being able to write
fast enough or not reaching whatever super
high expectations when I just stopped caring
what other people thought. And that's when I started
to produce my best work. That is literally what
produce my best work. The most important thing in your writing process is
if you're having fun, you're not having fun
with your writing. You're not going
to want to write. When you do end up writing, It's not going to be enjoyable. You won't produce as good work. You will produce
the best work when you are enjoying writing,
when you were having fun. The number one most
important thing is what makes you love right
in what makes it fun? If it's fun, that is literally
the most important thing. That is more
important than speed, that is way more important
than efficiency. You'll also probably
fund that you do write faster if you're having fun because you'll
want to write more. There's this weird
cognitive dissonance and the idea of like, Okay, well, even if it's not
fun to set these schedules, these goals, these
really intense word counts and right,
right, right, right. Because you've got
to be productive. Okay. But then you're going
to not want to write like you're training
yourself to view writing as a chore
as work or something you don't want to
do because you're acting like it's
something that you need to force yourself to do. But if you view readiness
something that's fun, and you create circumstances of writing that are
as fun as possible. And that might involve
scheduling if you are very high-paying,
he loves schedules. For me. That's not
what it involves. If you create the optimal
practices for ready to be fun, as fun as possible, then you'll want to write more. It won't feel like a chore. It'll feel like
something fun and you'll find yourself writing more. My question for the comments for today is I just want to hear what do you think is your
quirky just writing habit? I'm very particular about
how my books are formatted. If it's not in Garamond, I don't want to look at it. The therapist has to be
gerbil Gary my King. When I was younger, actually, I used to write every
book in a different font and I would have different fonts for the headers
and the body text. All my notes and
all my documents for every project
would be in that font. And one of the things
I would do when I started a new project
was picked my fonts for that book that I always associated that formatting
with that book. But then I found Garamond and there was no
one else for me. I was like, I can't go back. That's for me just like a
little thing that makes a huge difference is liking
the look of my formatting. So I'm very much,
I'm going to leave a few other videos I've done
already in process before. I'm going to leave my
video on motivation, I'm going to leave
my video on nano Rameau tips because I think a lot of those can be integrated into a regular writing practice. And then I'm also going
to leave my videos on self-care for writers and dealing with creative
slumps, writer's block. Thank you guys so much
for watching and I'll see you in another video.
15. Embrace Your Quirks: I would also say just
accept that everyone has their own little quirks and embracing them as
just a good thing. One thing that's really
beneficial if you feel insecure about
your methods, you feel like people find your methods
salient or whatnot. Look up the reading
processes of famous writers, they do some wild stuff. Again, writing is a creative
process and sometimes creativity is unlocked
in strange little ways. So knowing your quirks, embracing your quirks
just means that you know yourself and you
know what works for you.
Shaelin Mulder, Author
