Which Is More Important? Writing or What We Write? – Helping Writers Become Authors.
Today I am sharing a blog post from one of my favourite, informative blogs I enjoy reading. K.M. Weiland writes a lot about writing. Today she has posted an excerpt from author Bryan Hutchinson’s book Writer’s Doubt.
Bryan writes about how authors struggle with so much internally about their own work. Issues of self-doubt, rejection and many times our internal editor can tend to get in our own way as we write.
For more articles on writing you can check out Bryan’s website at www.positivewriter.com
DGKayewriter.com 
An easy and pleasant way of curing writer’s block or doubt is to employ Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages (found in her book The Artist’s Way), where you wake up each morning and the first thing you do is write 3-4 pages or a half-hour’s worth of free writing, not thinking or qualifying what you write. The point is that you learn to trust what you have to say in this mode of focus, it isn’t about quality but quantity. You can always edit later. The mindset that you develop over say a couple of years, but probably much shorter, is tied to the muse, where what we really need is to listen more closely to what is coming to us. The point is not to qualify, but to listen and that makes all the difference in obtaining the entire train of thought. Ideas are not enough, there has to be an unbroken flow of communication that the synthesis provides. That synthesis blurts itself when we wake and it may not be clear what was most important at the time and she recommends waiting for a couple of months before analyzing the matter you get. If I want to, I can often get a short story or missive per morning. (That’s a lot of writing.)
Having said that, what is most important initially is that we write. Once we have written, we can then decide if what we have written is important. The key is that when we wake those thoughts relating to dreams and what we’ve been churning in our minds is really what’s important to us in that time and it is often what’s most important to us in terms of social and cultural issues and ourselves in reality, which of course is the current truth of the times everyone would be interested in.
Now, that I have written the former, you can decide if what I have written is more important than having written. And if I have inspired you to respond then perhaps the answer is in that.
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Thank you kindly Mario for your interesting response. I agree with what you have said. I previously posted The Pink Basket, which was a story that came to mind from that type of writing, similar to Julia’s morning pages. The exercises were beautifully written in Natalie Goldberg’s book, Old Friend From Far Away; same concept as Cameron. Ironically, I have Cameron’s book sitting on my bookshelf on my TBR list. 🙂
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🙂
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These are great links, Debby. I love the Ackerman and Puglisi guides. Doubt is truly the great enemy of writing. It keeps us back from being in touch with our intuition and creativity. Learning to trust ourselves and believing that we have something worthwhile ot say is an ongoing process. I often read that this is also a problem with more experienced writers.
Enjoy your day. 🙂
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Thanks for taking the time Carol and glad you found the links interesting. I don’t think there are too many writers who don’t go through the self-doubting process. Thanks for commenting, as always. 🙂
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I write first and worry about details later. Encouraging post. 🙂
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I’m with you. 🙂
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❤ ❤ 🙂
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rhetorical question(s)… I also write, but I’ll never be an “author”… 😉
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🙂
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I think the most important thing is that we love what we are writing about and enjoy ourselves doing it. And of course, it’s more important what we write; even if it’s not a long article or story, it’s the consistency that makes it a great reading for others. 🙂
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Agreed. It’s our passion that drives us. 🙂
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