My Writing Process
Every person has their way of writing out a blog post. It may not be the most formal way of getting your thoughts out, but if it works for you and your audience, then that is all that matters right? Well, I was reading a post today about the writing process, and it made me think of how I actually go about my particular process. And my process was far from the one mentioned in the article.
For pre-writing, I definitely spend some time thinking about how I want to approach a particular topic. Usually, it is something that gets me excited to write about, and I try and make sure that I don’t just jump right into things and type as I think. I try to make it goal to have some valid points to my thoughts, or otherwise it ends up with me rambling on, which is not what people normally want to read.
I don’t normally type up rough drafts, but rather start out my post based on the thoughts that I had in the pre-writing. I try and iron out all of my thoughts in as many words as possible, so that I could go back and take out what isn’t necessary, or what sounds redundant. Since writing for the web is supposed to be clear and concise, I attempt to weed out all of the fluff information that has already been talked about.
Once I have all of my information down, and web-ready, I tend to skip some of the important parts, which are proof-reading, and editing. I won’t lie, I am not good at editing. While in school, all of the major writing projects that I had were edited by either professors or group members. So I tend to easily skip this step because I hate editing, which isn’t exactly a good thing. On the occassion that I do edit, it’s meshed together with the proofreading.
Then comes the step which I love the most, the publish button. I normally try and get to this step in a hurry, which sometimes means words spelled incorrectly or some other goofy mistake that could have been fixed with an easy proofread. I am working on getting better at these things though, so hopefully my writing will continue to improve with time.
How formal would you say your writing process is?
2 Comments
Ha. Formal? I don’t think that word has anything in common with writing. Writing is like talking; you just do it. In fact, John D. MacDonald (in his foreword to Stephen King’s first collection of short stories, Night Shift) said something similar: “If you want to write you write.”
For me, writing is a haphazard collection of rambling thoughts that coalesce into reality upon the blank page. Like those magnetic words you can stick on a fridge; you move them around until they make sense. There’s going to be a lot of words you don’t use, pushed off to the side, or laying on the floor at your feet, but that’s the process.
In regard to her wonderful book on writing, Anne Lamott said the title was based on what her father told her brother when he was a little boy and in agonies over writing a long report on birds. Her dad sat down, put his arm around her brother and said: “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
Amen, sister.
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