My Writing Process

Thoughts From The Heavy Reviser

Potter's Wheel Clay Sculpt Stoneware Turn Spin

DeMers, James. Potter's Wheel. https://pixabay.com/en/potter-s-wheel-clay-sculpt-58557/. 10/1/12.

1. When it comes to my overall personality and how I run my schedule day-to-day, I would definitely consider myself a heavy planner. I can't stand not having a set schedule to help me govern my time. When it comes to writing, I am the exact opposite. I don't want to sit still and plan because I am better with just throwing down my ideas so I can then see what I am working with later. I think this comes from the fact that I usually have more original ideas and/or a more genuine tone when I'm in the moment and not too focused on the arrangement of the sentence or its poetic capability.
2. I would say that my being as a whole definitely incorporates bits and pieces of each writing process, but I am a textbook case for being a heavy reviser when I am actually writing. I compared this to a potter because the only way to begin working is with a raw, squishy chunk of nothing (there is no structure to the clay, just the physical matter itself). That may have been oddly graphic, but it is the way I visualise my writing process. Then you can start molding and shaping and going back to fine tune your project.
3. This process works for me because it makes me comfortable to just get my ideas written down. Even if I may never end up using sentences or sections I like having too much rather than too little. I can definitely see that some downsides to this that I have experienced are that it is likely more time consuming, and it can get messy. When you're writing a lot, and then going back and deleting some of the things you wrote, and then also having to organize them you can bet it takes awhile. I mean - would I rather be able to eloquently express what I'm thinking and have it perfectly organized the first time? Of course. But that isn't the way my brain works. This writing process can also make your Word documents a little cluttered. When you have three sentences that you would like to use but don't know where to put them, they often get pushed to the top or bottom of the page, along with the random thoughts you had while trying to decide where to shove the ideas off to. This results in a plethora of random sentences all spaced apart at the foot of the page when you are done.
4. I would definitely be open to trying a different style of the writing processes, except that I would not have the mastery with it as I have with my current one. I know this change would just make me frustrated because I haven't adjusted to it, which surely isn't a fair judge of the process itself. Not to mention I would undoubtedly lose spur-of-the-moment ideas in the planning process. Nevertheless, maybe one day!