Enthusiasm! / Frustration :(

“Writing out your thoughts is how you realize that you do not understand what you are thinking about. Importantly, writing is also the process by which you figure it out. -Shane Parrish

“A good writer doesn’t just think, and then write down what they thought, as a sort of transcript. A good writer will almost always discover new things in the process of writing.” -Paul Graham

“I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they’re like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day… fifty the day after that… and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it’s—GASP!!—too late.” -Stephen King, book On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft

Here’s my writing process and let me know if it’s similar to yours…

Enthusiasm! A good idea pops into my head that I want to share.

Frustration. 😦 I sit down to write what was in my head and it doesn’t come out so smooth. “What the hell was I trying to say?” I muck my way through.

Enthusiasm!! I wade through the muck and get to the other side. I go deeper with my original thought. “Hey. This is pretty good.” I set it aside and feel good about my work.

Frustration. 😦 😦 I read it later, the next day, and am depressed. “This sucks.” I am particularly aghast at the amount of adverbs I’ve left in. I set out to excise these dandelions (“Should I remove particularly?…I’m unsure.”) and all the extra words I can. I muck my way through.

Enthusiasm/Frustration. Yeah it’s better, but if I just had more time I could…

…Deadline is here. Read it over one last time and make any edits.

Ship.

(Repeat the process tomorrow.)

P.S. -Speaking of removing adverbs, this Seth Godin post.