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How I Write
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.
I am thrilled with the feedback from my last post—a tear-jerker for any who attempts reading it. It’s a story that took me two years to write… not that I was actively writing it the whole time. I desperately wanted to share my story sooner. I wanted to send it to newspapers, accompanied with my own rude political-cartoon style illustrations mocking the mental healthcare system, but I couldn’t do it. I was too angry.
I couldn’t let myself share my story until I let myself empathize with mental healthcare practitioners—the people I called and left countless unanswered voicemails for help—desperate cries drowned in a sea of others. I had to stop wanting to tear them down and instead see things from their perspective: the overwhelm and frustration that comes from needing to solve urgent problems with the wrong set of tools. You do your best to cover gashing wounds with band-aids, but the line of wailing wounded is going out the door.
I couldn’t let myself write about my experiences with family mental illness until I let myself empathize with mass killing shooters. It is a topic that you think I would be at the forefront of discussing—but until then—I could do nothing but look away.
I couldn’t let myself write my story until I let myself feel all of the pain again. My story has encouraged others to write about their experiences, and I am thrilled for this: we need all the perspectives we can get. But I warn you, this is not easy. The following outlines my writing process, along with common pitfalls that experience has taught me to avoid.
Writing is a feeling process. Thinking brain, move aside and make room for your heart. I’ve tried to make this a logical and predictable system, with writing schedules, to-do lists, and reliable routines, but it never fails to fail.
Writing from the heart is unpredictable. It requires the visit of a certain elusive guest, a mysterious woman named Inspiration. I used to consider waiting for inspiration to strike as silly—real artists get to work consistently—don’t they? But the more experience I get, the more I learn that forcing myself to write when I’m not inspired doesn’t help me or the reader. It’s tiring work, and tiring to read.
Inspiration only visits those who are happy in her absence. She can smell desperation from a mile way and hates to be tied down, so don’t even try. Once you accept that your life does not revolve around her, she will happily visit. This creative process is about all steps involved: how to entice Inspiration to visit, how to be a welcome host, and what to do in her absence.
The Inspired Writing Process
- The Invitation: Intentions and Questions
- Serendipitous Research
- False Starts and Starting Over
- Inspiration Knocks: Writing and Crying—it all flows out
- Editing, but mostly, Deleting
- Publishing
1. The Invitation: Intentions and Questions
There is something burning within you. Something that needs to get out. Something that you don’t fully understand yet.
Focus on that.
You might not even have words for it. Maybe it’s just a feeling. Your starting point doesn’t need to be big, just big enough to stand on. This feeling tells you where you are, guiding you through an unfolding journey, and helps bring you back from the unknown with newfound understanding.
Elaborate on that feeling. What is it? What needs to be understood? What questions do you want to be answered?
The first step of writing, incedentally, is not writing, but asking questions. These questions give your work the laser-focus it needs so that when Inspiration does her rounds, you’re on her list, and she knows what to give you.
Maybe you’ve had experiences in your life that you don’t understand. There’s unfinished business, unanswered questions and unresolved traumas. Or simply things that you are curious about. For me, my questions have to do with the mind. For instance:
- How does mental illness present itself in the animal kingdom? Do other animals exhibit similar symptoms?
- What can be learned about mental illness from non-Western cultures? What are other perspectives?
- What alternative therapies have been benefical to healing these symptoms?
It may be strange to consider writing equal parts teaching and learning, but I can see it no other way. Every time I start a new post, I’m just as surprised at how it is unfolding as you are. On the other hand, if you are stubborn and not open to the twisting path opening before you, your work will feel linear and dull.
Writing from Inspiration requires faith. It can be hard listening to her. I like the certainty of having a writing schedule. Blindly following Inspiration requires faith that the next step won’t be off a cliff, but instead will be to higher ground, giving you a birds-eye view on your questions.
With questions in hand as your acting GPS, and faith in its functionality, you’re ready to research.
2. Serendipitous Research
Instead of letting the fear of uncertainty paralyze you, let it excite you. You never know where unanswered questions will lead you.
Adventure awaits.
I don’t feel the inspiration to write nearly as much as the inspiration to research.
Rather than fretting about the inspiration that is absent, focus on what desires are present. There is never a vacuum of intention. Maybe instead of writing, you feel compelled to research, or to watch a movie. Listen to that. You never know how seemingly unrelated things will connect.
For example, I recently started researching about psychopaths—into understanding individuals that struggle to empathize with others, or even, want to harm others. In taking a break from that, I decided to randomly watch the first thing I found on Netflix. The opening line of the short series was: “I’m James. I’m 17. And I’m pretty sure I’m a psychopath.” Boom.
I let out a laugh, haha. There’s no escaping my research! (The show was The End of the F***ing World.)
These kinds of meaningful coincidences, or synchronicities, happen to me all the time, but only when I listen to Inspiration.
Notes
Capture your notes in whatever way feels natural. If you’re finding it hard to stay organized, you might benefit from this notecard cataloging system that’s popular among nonfiction authors.
I just recently set up my own notecard system. The hardest part is deciding which categories, and even sub-categories, are useful for your questions. From there, decide how to organize. You can use tabs, color-coded cards, or what I do, which is buy circle stickers and put them on the side.
It’s a useful and simple referencing system that I see myself building on for my whole life.
3. False Starts and Starting Over
Often I will get inspiration to write, but it won’t be enough to finish the idea to completion. I’ve started to piece things together, but it doesn’t feel like the exploration phase has wrapped up yet. What results is a half-finished post that I probably won’t look at again. I have many of those.
It’s taken me a while to not get discouraged when this happens, but instead to view it as part of the process. False starts refine my questions so I know what to look into next, allowing me to repeat the previous two steps. I find that the more I repeat this cycle, the richer the final result ends up being—almost like a slow cooking process. It’s worth the wait.
4. Inspiration Knocks: Writing and Crying—it all flows out
My story flooded out of me during 10 hours while laying down in bed, frantically typing words on my phone instead of sleeping. No sleep, food, or water. As it poured out of me, I could think of nothing else. I didn’t even realize that I had pulled an all-nighter until I was finished.
Inspiration is like that. Her presence is electric. There’s a reason her visits require you to be in a good shape, mentally and physically. She takes a toll!
The intensity of her vists depend on the emotions involved, because…
You Need to Feel Everything
The more painful the memories you are expressing, the harder this will be. There is no shame in shelving stories until you are ready. Face them only when the experience promises to be cathartic.
If I had written my story from a logical place, it would have been chronological. I would have listed important details, the facts. It would read like your standard newspaper article. You know how inspiring those are.
You’ll notice that my story isn’t linear. I jumped around the timeline based on the emotional pacing.
Nothing gives you the clarity needed to shift through your experiences to determine the gold nuggets from the dirt, like intense feelings. I had no idea when I started writing that the knife-safe would be mentioned at all, but when reliving everything, I realized how important this detail actually was.
Tapping into the emotions of your memories make them vivid. It distorts them, highlighting what is profound from what is extraneous. This is not a technique to use for objectivity, but objectivity isn’t what we want right now. Empathy is. Close the door and cry.
Here you have a choice. You can trigger the painful feelings and memories, bring them up from their depths, or wait for something else to eventually do that for you.
I did the latter. The evening before writing, I was having a defensive conversation with a friend that was getting out of hand. It unearthed my memories of powerlessness again… I had already been crying as I laid down for bed, and I figured that I might as well capture as much of these memories while I could because I didn’t want to relive them again later…
I’m glad I did.
5. Editing, but mostly, Deleting
Let out a sigh of relief because it’s all downhill from here.
Writing, while being the most intense step, is also the briefest. Inspiration’s surprise visit has changed your life, but she also left you with a mess to clean up, so let’s get to work.
This is where your thinking brain comes. While total objectivity is boring, total subjectivity is exhausting. We need a balance. We tell the facts, but with style.
This is where you take what has poured out of you and read it from the perspective of someone who has never seen it before. Dry your tears, open the door and invite others in. Reading the work aloud to somebody who’s hearing it for the first time is a beneficial telepathic writing technique.
Usually the first draft is longer than necessary. When editing, there’s an initial urge to add more, but resist the desire to hold the reader’s hand. It’s degrading and makes for a less suspenseful read.
6. Publishing
I work on a piece until the sense of completion washes over me. This isn’t about perfectionism, but about rediscovering the starting point of your journey as a changed person. That feeling within you, the things that needed to come out, the questions in need of answers, are they complete? Or is it time to venture out again?
Trepidation, or a slight concern of “Will people like this?” is also a good feeling to accompany this. The awareness of this uncertainty shows me that I am putting out something new and untested. In making a stand for something, the feedback becomes more polarizing: people either love it or hate it. In accepting that, I’m ready to publish.
Make your work an important part of your life, but not the only thing in your life. You can’t receive unless you are empty, in a receptive state of mind. Being frustrated about the lack of inspiration is the very thing that keeps her from visiting.
A consequence of living according to self-love is that my actions are always dependent on Inspiration. It’s been a relief to realize that she is always present, if I only listen. You always feel inspired to do something, even if that something is to watch a movie. I find that the more I listen to her subtle voice, the happier I am, but also paradoxly, the more impactful my work becomes. I am able to work less, but the work I end up doing has a greater effect on people.
To tap into the magic of inspired work, simply listen within. You know what to do.