I’ve been reticent to post something about my writing process on here because I feel like I need to be published more before I have the kind of authority that would make what I have to say interesting to people. So many of you have asked, however, that I’m giving in. Besides, it isn’t like I’ve never been published.

"Write drunk; edit sober."

This is the first of several posts about how I write.

Here are the 5 steps I take every morning during my routine:

Step 1: Don’t write

I meditate for 20 minutes before even approaching the writing desk. It isn’t a religious act, and it isn’t attached to any superstitious beliefs about “the guiding power of the oversoul” in my work. It’s actually a very small, relatively meaningless act.

I sit in a chair, close my eyes, and focus on the way breathing passes over the tip of my nose. Remember this because it’s sort of like a Mr. Miyagi lesson that I’ll refer to in a later post about the act of writing.

Anyway, just think of meditation like defragmenting the hard drive that is your brain.

Step 2: Warm up

A blank page can be terrifying. All those choices, all those ideas, where do you start? How do you start?? The trick is, you don’t. In her book, Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg (a book that has influenced me greatly, by the way) talks about the importance of letting your hand flow across the page.

That is a difficult thing to start doing cold. So in the first part of my routine, I begin by letting my mind wander across 3 pages. I make a to do list for the day, I write about something from the night before, I write about dreams, aspirations, fears. Really, whatever comes to mind.

I keep this to 3 pages because they can get out of hand. In the past, if I let myself go on and on, the writing got self-indulgent and became a way for me to put off the next step.

Step 3: Write the thing.

Here is the most humbling part of my day: writing new pages. This is a difficult thing to do, because it’s a real blow to the ego to have to endure 2,500 words of crappy writing. I mean really crappy writing. Mixed metaphors, flat dialogue, rambling descriptions, and it just goes on and on while you stew in it.

I don’t even call them 1st drafts anymore. To me, these are discovery drafts, and that’s what I’m doing there. I’m just trying to write the thing out and discover characters, plot elements, themes, and tones that I could never figure out beforehand.

To me, writing has always been about rolling up your sleeves, and thrusting your hands deep into the muck of consciousness. I don’t know anything until I already know it. This is why I don’t talk about my writing when I’m in the middle of working on it. I’m not trying to cultivate an elusive air. I just can’t answer the question.

"Arrange whatever pieces come your way. "

“What’s your latest novel about?” Truly? I have no idea.  (Well, I sort of do now. I just finished the discovery draft of my new novel).  So instead of inviting even more prying questions by saying “I don’t know,” I just say I don’t like to talk about it, which is true.  Writing is only writing.  It isn’t talking about writing, and it isn’t having written. You can extrapolate this to all areas of your life. There is only the act itself, anything else, in reference to that act, is bullshit.

Step 4: Rewrite the other thing

Novels are not special.  The one I’m working on is not special, or hallowed, or possibly even a milestone.  In fact, nothing you write is special.  They are just single works of many, and I have to treat them that way or else they’ll get spoiled, like single children.  That, and I really can’t take that kind of pressure.   How would I ever be able to write something if I thought it was my only shot?

So I always keep this in mind, and I always have a conveyor belt full of material at different stages of the writing process. That includes my favorite stage, this one, the rewriting stage.

Here is where I literally re-write a previous draft of one of my works, whether that be a short story, novel, or essay (yeah, I do those too sometimes). When I say rewrite, I don’t mean I take a black marker and a stack of pages and go through making editorial notes like “awk” and “sp?” and “stet.” That’s really not helpful to me, particularly in such an early draft.

Re-writing means I sit down with a page of writing on one side and a blank page on the other, and I actively copy down what I wrote before. Inevitably, I will make some changes. Maybe just a few at first, but the second draft will be different from the first.

Eventually, you get to a draft where your changes have added up so dramatically, that the difference between the one you’re working on and the 1st is like the difference between a fishing boat and a yacht. The magically archaeological dig through the unconscious mind that is writing, is never more clear to see than through the evolution of drafts.

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”

Step 5: Read

Don’t buy into the garbage you occasionally hear other people spout off about how it’s bad to read while you’re writing because you may get influenced by those authors. I can’t stand it when people say that.

Honestly, if it were true, and somehow I became the self-appointed brain child of Jorge Luis Borges, James Ellroy, and Donald Antrim, I’d consider that a good thing.  In fact, I’d be excited to read what that kind of mash-up would sound like.

It is true that your writing will be influenced by what you read, but because nothing you are working on is particularly special (see Step 3), you don’t have to worry about the adverse effects this may have on your authorial voice.

It does, however, imply that you ought to read good books. You know how it goes, garbage in, garbage out. As for what constitutes a good book, that’s pretty much up to your own tastes and the kind of writer you are (which you won’t know exactly until you’ve already become one).  Funny thing about that writing voice.  It evolves on its own without any help from you, so you might as well just stand aside and let it do its thing.

So there you have it:  5 steps to a better writing routine.  These steps work for me, but I’m curious to hear about what works for you.  Tell me how your process is different or the same in the comments section.  I’d love to hear it!