Creator, Critic; Process, Product: In Defense of Writing Quickly
Recently, Ian Shine from TheThingIs.co.uk contacted me asking for an interview. I'm not going to post the whole interview here because Ian hasn't yet posted it on the site so if you'd like to read the whole thing you'll either have to wait or else subscribe to the newsletter where I posted it in full. I welcome your comments.
IAN:
What is the point in churning out 50,000 words without any kind of editing process?
Your Write or Die tool, like NaNoWriMo, promotes writing without procrastination. Do you think this really has any merit? All of the world's greatest novels took years to write, so what's the point in trying to churn out writing as fast as possible, just for writing's sake?
DR WICKED:
If you had the apparatus to look inside the head of any creative person you would find twin beasts; we will call these the Creator and the Critic. In the well-organized mind they grow together: the more one creates the sharper one's eye becomes to the details in the creation of others, the more one looks critically at the works of others the more one is driven to create something better. The problem occurs when the Creator sits down to create; the Critic cannot differentiate between the process and the product and therefore begins to make loud comments about how horrible this creation is and how it could be so much better.
The goal of Write or Die is to get the Critic to shut up during the process and wait for the product. A lot of people criticise NaNoWriMo, saying that it's about nothing more than churning out reams of bilge. These people have the same problem as the Critic, they do not see that NaNoWriMo (and Write or Die) is about the process, not the product.
So, these things must be separate: Creator and Critic, Process and Product.
It's true that most novels take years to go from inception to publication, it is foolish to argue that point. I simply posit that the answer for the writers toiling in obscurity is to first take away the toil and then tackle the obscurity. Writing Does Not Have To Be Hard. The creature inside you that makes it hard is not the Creator, it is the Critic, holding you back and telling you it's not good enough. Make the Critic wait for the product when it can be used for things like editing, and by the time you're ready to edit it will have plenty of things to say.
posted by Dr. Wicked at
5:13 PM
5 Comments:
You pinpointed everything that Nanowrimo is about, and more importantly, you explained the creativity of a writer.
I, for one, am not a published writer, but I can appreciate what Nanowrimo gives me and I also can appreciate Write or Die as well.
When I first tried it out I couldn't imagine how it would help with my procrastination, but for reasons unknown to me, it really does help give me the kick in the pants I need to set aside my inner editor and just write freely. I love it!
I'm starting out pretty late in life with my dreams, dreams I never knew I had in me, dreams I never thought could be possible.
Thanks to Nanowrimo and Write or die I now see them as possibilities rather than dreams.
Jody
I agree with Jody on several levels. Procrastination kills. An overzealous inner-editor isn't good either, but I don't like to kill him off as much as I like to team up with him.
As far as my own writing goes, I am about to become a published author (of an 8-year-in-the-making non-fiction book). I also have a word count of 45,540 at Nanowrimo 2008. I lack, however, the perspective of authors who have already travelled farther down exciting literary roads than I have… but I do have an opinion. As far as Ian's question goes, I am left to wonder whether he was just asking, for the sake of provoking thought, or if Ian was really trying to infer that there is no point to writing without an anticipated editing process in the future. I agree that editing is essential to a published product, but I see only a benefit to writing - no matter what follows the creation process. I know people who go on hikes, not intending to reach the trails' final destinations, but to simply go as far as they can. While their experiences may seem pointless to some, these hikers do enjoy the sights, scents and sounds that they have the power to reach. Not every writer is going to be published, but that should not stop anyone from taking a stroll down Literary Lane. Who knows, maybe they will get farther along than they anticipated? I say, “Just write something and then see what happens.” The future awaits, and it isn’t written yet!
I just wanted to comment on the 'all of the world's greatest novels took years to write'. One of my country's greatest writers, Simon Vestdijk (1898-1971) wrote 52novels, 12 collections of short stories, over 20 collections of poems, and over 30 essays on science, religion, music etc. He won 10 major literary awards. He is still famous as 'the man who wrote faster than God could read'. Writing fast does not automatically mean writing badly. It may mean you have a lot to write about.
"All of the world's greatest novels took years to write"
Yeah, because THAT's not the biggest load of hyperbole I've ever seen <_< Hey while we're at it, why not say "All great authors wear glasses and are men." or "REAL writers choose I Can't Believe it's Not Butter!"
Sure, what you write during NaNo and on WriteorDie is going to be utter shit, and definitely you should acknowledge that and take your editing *exactly as seriously* as you did the writing.
But you can't edit if you don't have anything *written*, and you can't get anything written if you agonize over every sentence, trying to make it The Greatest Literary Sentence of The Decade before moving on. Novels aren't written a sentence at a time.
Writing quickly doesn't mean it's going to be garbage, and writing slowly doesn't mean it's going to be Dostoyevsky.
I love when they drag out these old gems like "bla bla bla" took John Smith X years to write....therefore if you take less than this you are worthless. This completely goes without accounting for the fact that the average standard of living and speed of information have changed drastically throughout the centuries; it leaves out that all writers approach the craft differently; it leaves out, more or less, everything but a naive bare-bones "speed=merit" correlation that's completely unfounded, and as an argument I wouldn't wipe my ass with it in any debate centered on real logic.
And although the quote "the first draft of anything is shit" is generally trotted out by (shitty) writers (to prove by equally sound logic that Hemingway supports their Twilight-knockoff victorian vampire sci-fi romance), the truth behind it remains the same.
It takes time and discretion to make something half-way-decent into something lasting and beautiful. But it takes a mad dash of creativity to throw something half-decent together, and when the blank page's taunts are a little too noisome, a catalyst (or an artificially imposed deadline) can be a godsend.
I disagree, actually. Well, about NaNo, not about Write or Die.
As a writer I find that NaNoWriMo makes me feel rushed, stressful, and more likely to crank out work that I feel bad about later on. Defeating the inner critic temporarily doesn't do me any good when I go back and look at what I wrote without the critic makes me hate my writing.
On the other hand, Write or Die is exactly what I need. It's not really about rushed writing. I tend to not use a timer entirely. I just say, "This is the amount of words I want to write today," and I don't give myself a time limit. Granted that in the long run I've wound up writing 900 words in 30 minutes, so I could use a timer if I wanted, but the focus on Write or Die, for me, isn't the time-to-word ratio. It's the ability to make me focus.
As long as I'm still doing something in the window -- regardless of whether that thing is fresh writing or editing, I avoid the 'punishment'. The lack of distraction does many, many times more for me than an intangible reward for rushed, crappy writing.
For the record, I prefer Novel in 90 to NaNo.
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