As those of you who have been reading my updates here for the past few months are aware, I’ve been wrestling with some problems with my process. That’s entailed, more or less, trying to move from a level where I have to think through everything I’m doing as a writer back to a more organic one, where things come more naturally.
It’s like learning to drive a car. Assuming you have learned how to drive, remember when you first started, and you had to think about everything you were doing very carefully? If it was a manual transmission, there was the process of clutching, shifting, and controlling the gas pedal. Once you actually made it out on the road,you probably found yourself microsteering, making tiny course corrections and constantly fiddling with where the car was going rather than aiming it along the road like a pro.
We don’t drive the car, in other words. Instead, we shift and clutch and steer and manipulate the blinkers and check our blind spot more or less as independent actions. Until eventually, one day, after we’ve beendoing it for a while, we get into the car while we’re distracted by something else–maybe we’re mad at our boss or worried about our elderly parent–and discover to our surprise that we have made it to our destination without thinking about each individual element of the process.
That’s an ongoing problem in learning any new skill. At first, it requires massive attention to detail and we have to wiggle each bit as an independent element, but eventually we find we’ve reached a point where to progress in the skill we have to internalize what we’ve learned, and make it automatic.
Lately, I’ve been struggling with how to stop thinking in detail about my writing, and just let it happen. I’ve been noticing that the actual process of writing is taking up more of my intellectual capacity: I used to use music as a distraction while writing, to occupy my conscious mind and get it out of the way of the storyteller down there in the subconscious. Lately, I’ve been finding even that is too much of a drain, because I am trying to think about too much.
Just last week, I overheard a piece of advice that wasn’t even directed at me, but which hit home quite spectacularly. Think about what you’re doing, not about how you’re doing it.
Well, of course, I realized. That’s the secret, right? Think about what you are doing. Not about how you are doing it.
I’ve been thinking about that ever since. Because my learning process for the last seven years has been heavily geared towards intellectualization and practice. I’ve been very conscious of what I have been learning and how I have been learning it, and of how I have manipulated my process to make myself a better writer.
And now, suddenly, that learning process, which has been my friend since 2001, is tripping me. And so I am endeavoring to take this advice which I have appropriated, and just put one word in front of the other and tell a story with interesting characters and well-developed themes.
Just drive the car.
8 Comments, Comment or Ping
Mark David Gerson
I loved how you used the example of driving a car in describing the evolution of your process, as that’s an image I use frequently both in my own writing and when I speak about creativity.
For me, writing is about getting in the car — but on the passenger side — and letting the story (however you define it) be in the driver’s seat, carrying me on a journey of wonder and discovery.
To borrow from Stephen King (and change metaphors): “”[M]y basic belief about the making of stories is that they largely make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow.”
Jul 7th, 2008
Dave Wilson
Hmmmm - the little thing above says no related posts found, but this reminds me of my post “The Smooth Level, and Beyond,” because it’s similar. I talked there about that point where everything you write has reached a certain competence level - it’s technically and aesthetically good…and what remains is to use that skill/talent to best effect - to write what matters to you and get lost in it rather than getting lost trying to figure it out…good, thoughtful piece, Bear.
Dave
Jul 7th, 2008
Elizabeth Bear
Dave, I think you are absolutely right about that. Part of my current juggling act is that I had to get a lot of distance from my work to achieve that technical proficiency, and now I have to figure out how to let go of that hard-won craft and just trust the reflexes I’ve spent the last twenty or thirty years building. Which is scary stuff.
Mark, my damned stories refuse to make themselves. They often have to be constructed as if from Legos. I envy Mr. King his facility, however. I wish I had a driver!
Jul 7th, 2008
Gerard Houarner
Very cool observation. Everyone’s machinery of creation needs a little tuning every now and then — life and story challenges demand them. What I took out of your essay was be in the moment, in the “now” with the story - I guess a kind of dream or meditative state (though if you have to stop and explain what it is, you’re no longer making room for the story…damn it).
Jul 7th, 2008
Eric Wilson
Oh, I love your comments on thinking about what you’re doing, not how you’re doing it. Western culture seems so preoccupied with classroom teaching that we’ve lost much of the art of mentoring, and learning by doing. In the process, we’ve also lost a lot of the enjoyment in the learning journey. Thanks for reminding us not to keep some heart and soul in what our minds pursue.
Jul 7th, 2008
Tahariel
…you know, this is the exact problem I’m currently having with my hospital placement for my degree course, and have been tearing my hair out over as my tutors tell me how below standards I am etc etc.
I think you may have just helped me a whole lot with that bit of advice. Thank you!
Jul 7th, 2008
Fran Friel
I had a professor once tell me that there are stages of learning any skill:
1. Unconscious incompetence - you don’t know you stink.
2. Conscious competence - you’re fully aware that you stink, but you’re working to improve said stinkiness.
3. Conscious competence - you know what you’re doing but you still have to think about it to do a competent job and avoid stinkiness.
4. Unconscious competence - no longer having to think about your skill level you just let it flow and smell sweet all the way.
Sounds like you’re dropping into overdrive and smellin’ sweet and learning to trust that very fact. Thanks so much for showing such vulnerability about your process, Elizabeth. It gives those of us still hovering between 2 and 3 real hope. As a fan, I would have thought you were a 4 long ago!
Many Thanks,
Fran
Jul 8th, 2008
Fran Friel
Oops!
That #2 should be Conscious Incompetence. Looks like I’ve slipped back between the one and two spot in my self-editing abilities. Grrr…
Jul 8th, 2008
Reply to “Think about what you’re doing, not about how you’re doing it.”