Respect the Writing Process, But…

tyunglebower ♦ March 5, 2026 ♦ Leave a comment

“Honoring the process,” is either a mantra in the world of the artist, or a cliche, depending on one’s perspective. Perhaps it alternates. One thing is clear; this exhortation is ubiquitous.

Actually, right or wrong, the anecdotal survey suggests that it more often arrives in either form within the sphere of those who struggle to gain an external toehold with their creations–those who do not sell much or at all. Those lacking a consistent viewership or readership, as they case may be.

Those such as myself.

And while I acknowledge that commercially successful and/or critically acclaimed creators have just as much likelihood and right to full embrace process over outcome, beyond a certain point of success our capitalist, attention-and-acclaim-driven society tends to reward inferior creations more and more, satisfied as they are with the mere name attached to them.

Process is rendered incidental to the highly successful, unless they possess a particularly intense commitment.

Those of us in the perpetual trenches of art, (reasons often unknown) are far more often faced with the necessity to focus on process.

It comes easier to some than to others, this directed attention on the making-of as opposed to the enjoyment-of by others.

Yet simply, “focus on the work,” and “revel in the process” are often too cold, clinical, void of inspiration to those who seek even a modest audience.

Count me among such folks.

Intellectually I accept the wisdom of a toiling focusing on the process over results. My heart, however, sees this as the tedium born of surrender, if I am not careful.

So I tell myself that to write stories and novels that may never be read despite my best efforts is about bringing as many fully-formed worlds into existence as I can before I die.

Sounds dramatic, if not morbid. It’s probably a dash of both.

Nevertheless it is the element of transcendence I require in order to tap into at least some motivation for writing and creating.

Without this impetus to define new lives, worlds, realities, (or in the case of my non-fiction thought processes), I’d do what my Autistic mind does so well; keep everything in my head. After all, if nobody is going to enjoy what I create (as per the pattern of my entire career) why put effort into getting such things “down on the page?”

Probably because to resign to this is to allow all such creations to die with me when the time comes.

True, my computer files, scribblings in notebooks and stacks of printed sheets may, and likely will be consigned to oblivion once I die. The odds of them being consumed by anyone appreciative party at that point appear miniscule.

Even so, my creations are fully in the world. I have put my mind and spirit through the experience of pulling what I conceive through the magical forcefield of thought into the tangible reality of the senses.

That is a process that might just by mystical, and self-affirming enough to be worth the effort mores than the clicking away into the void of an empty room within an empty world that doesn’t want what my spirit offers.

If you struggle with finding the nobility of creating for “nobody,” embrace this notion of external realization of your ideas. It may not bring in the audience you long for, but it has a chance of making the process a powerful one.

That is what I am telling myself lately, at least