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24 October 2008 @ 08:50 am
Writing advice  
Writing is thinking.

Writing is not a process simply of transcribing ideas that are already worked out in full. Writing is the process of working through those ideas.

It is not necessary, nor is it likely even desirable, to sit down and write only after your ideas are worked out, because the very act of writing is the most important part of the process of working them out in full.

Writing is thinking.

I'm not telling you this, because you probably already know it. I'm telling it to myself. When my writing is going well and steadily, I seem to know this instinctively. But when I'm trying to find my way back in after a time away, I always want to have every i dotted in my head before I start writing.

Nope, doesn't work that way. Writing is thinking. Thinking is not writing.
 
 
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the sentimental curmudgeon[info]curmudgeon on October 24th, 2008 02:15 pm (UTC)
No matter how much I know this, I must constantly remind myself of it. Things do not leap fully-formed from my brain to the screen. They just don't. More's the pity.
Dan Kelly: George Gissing[info]mrdankelly on October 24th, 2008 02:17 pm (UTC)
Ah yes, but writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

Seriously, good advice. I'm going to pretend you were directing it at me even though you weren't, okay?
Keikaimalu[info]keikaimalu on October 24th, 2008 03:21 pm (UTC)
I think of writing as being a means of asking or processing questions. When I read fiction in which the author thinks s/he knows it all already, it comes off soapboxy. It's when there's still the humility to leave some uncertainty that the writing speaks most strongly.
Rose Fox[info]rosefox on October 24th, 2008 03:27 pm (UTC)
I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.

--Flannery O'Connor
PixelFish[info]pixelfish on October 24th, 2008 05:14 pm (UTC)
Even before trying to write a novel, I knew that those people who tell writers, "I've got this great idea--you just write it out, and we'll split the money," were full of crap.

But being in the midst of the Big Fat Fantasy Epic of Doom, I now think trying to bridge ideas to words is about the most excruciatingly fun self-torture devised by man. I loves it to death, but it is in no way easy.
Writing is thinking.

Writing is not a process simply of transcribing ideas that are already worked out in full. Writing is the process of working through those ideas.

It is not necessary, nor is it likely even desirable, to sit down and write only after your ideas are worked out, because the very act of writing is the most important part of the process of working them out in full.

Writing is thinking.

I'm not telling you this, because you probably already know it. I'm telling it to myself. When my writing is going well and steadily, I seem to know this instinctively. But when I'm trying to find my way back in after a time away, I always want to have every i dotted in my head before I start writing.

Nope, doesn't work that way. Writing is thinking. Thinking is not writing.
 
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