Long Day’s Journey into Process
I have never rushed my work. Most of my novels took 11-12 months to write, and another six months or so of proofreads and edits. A few of the early ones did not even get that far until I set the rough draft aside for two months to let it “rest” in my head.
Though I have self-published my work, I have always been as deliberate as possible when doing so. My name is on the work, after all, I am not about to release sloppy products out there on purpose. Had I been able to afford professional editors more often, I would likely have availed myself of them. I wasn’t going to let a measly thing like budget, however, stand in the way of me sharing my stories with the world at large; I meticulously did it myself.
In the last year or so, what with my mother’s death and a few other less severe life changes, I have not merely been deliberate in writing, I have been virtually inert. As I construct in multiple facets of life a new normal out of the salvageable rubble of the previous longstanding normal, I am gradually writing again. (As I mentioned in a previous post about grief while writing a novel.)
After such a painful and irregular hiatus from consistent production, one might assume I’d be chomping at the proverbial bit to crank out new work. That isn’t the case, and furthermore, I foresee myself embracing the process of longform content creation even more than before. (My days of one novel per yearISH are unlikely to return.)
A bit of process almost every day may or may not result in a finished draft later sooner than my previous pace. Yet I imagine it serves as a reminder of what I am doing, and why.
To sustain the proper esteem for what imagination, creativity and story telling as a whole do for myself and the world (sometimes) I intend to commit to the state of writing, as much as the writing itself. I want to prioritize the engagement with parts of myself connected to the collective subconscious of creativity that everyone from Shakespeare to Shatner has committed themself to in one way or another in pursuit of their version of art.
I always respected this engagement–counted myself fortunate that I possess sufficient abilities to make use of it the way I do. Yet in previous years I saw it perhaps as a sacred vehicle by which I could arrive at a destination of story craft–whereas now I intend to treat it more as a sacred cottage…stationary, familiar, powerful in its own right even if there is eventually a world beyond it.
An aspiration to “stay a while,” if you will, but not dragging my feet and procrastinating on the latest project.
I do this in my theatre life all the time. 90% of being in a production is process, hopefully leading to an exhilarating but brief presentation of the accumulated result to the world. I am an actor that loves to rehearse a lot, and would hate to go on stage with inadequate rehearsal behind me. (Which on occasion I have had to do, and would be happy never to do again….)
Not sure why I have never come to the same conclusion about the process of writing. Perhaps because theatre is communal and I have no choice, while writing is solitary and I can get ahead of myself.
Whatever your passion projects are, I encourage you to join me in a more intentional submersion into process itself.
What is your process?
Ty Unglebower 