Writing Isn’t About Finding the Right Answer

What to do when you get stuck working around a project instead of writing it, and how to talk with students about reading and writing

Dear I Have Notes,

I was wondering if you could address the problem of getting stuck writing “around” a project—in my case, a novel that I have a lot of ideas for, but seem to be unable to sit down and actually write. I have 20,000 words, but it’s slow going and I keep indulging my desires for research, plotting, etc., rather than building scenes.

— Hopeful Novelist

Dear Hopeful,

I read your question and immediately felt the horror of recognition. I always feel great when I’m gathering research or doing interviews. I’m learning! I’m being productive! I’m not writing! Wait, you’re saying that I actually need to write? But I was having so much fun.

It’s gotten easier, over the years, to buckle down and draft, mostly because I have (somewhat grudgingly) become a writer who outlines. I won’t start a major project without a road map—sure, it’s going to change as I go, but at least I’m spared the awful experience of opening up a new blank document and not knowing how to begin. Crucially, outlining also feels lower-stakes to me—I can try different things and move pieces around without feeling as though every action is make-or-break. It’s exciting and reassuring to begin to see the arc of a story, the plan coming together on the page: Once you outline it, you know you can write it.

There are many ways you might try to inject a bit more accountability into your creative life, if you think that could help you get down to business. Some of them involve external encouragement and/or validation: You can set a daily or weekly word goal, share your draft or pages at regular intervals with a friend, perhaps look for a class focused on novel-writing so you have a community to work with and an instructor offering some feedback. I’ve mentioned this before, but I have various writer friends I email with the number of words accumulated or minutes/hours spent writing that day.

I like to set aside one or two days a week that are just writing days. If it’s one of those days and I’m struggling to start, sometimes I partake in a good old-fashioned timed writing session. It might be just 10 or 20 minutes to start. I tell myself that the work doesn’t have to be great; I’m not showing it to anyone yet. I just need to start writing and keep going until the timer goes off. If I do a good job, I get a treat. (As ever, I cannot overemphasize the importance of little treats in one’s writing life.)

For timed or free-writing sessions, I like to use a notebook. When I write at a computer, I often find myself working in fits and starts, taking short breaks because I type very quickly and then have to wait or reach for new ideas. I’m much slower writing by hand, which means I have to keep the pen moving across the paper just to keep up with my thoughts. Something happens when I force myself to maintain that constant physical connection—the ongoing tactile feedback helps keep my mind moving, too. My next book started in a lined yellow journal, where I scribbled for weeks, letting questions and ideas branch out and wander, before telling anyone that I was even thinking about another book. That’s how I wrote my way into it.

We’ve all had weeks, months, even years when it feels impossible to produce. I’m not here to tell you that you need to get the words out at any cost—sometimes they are slow for a very good reason. Sometimes you just need to give yourself time. But the more you do manage to write, especially on the days when it feels most daunting, the more confidence you’ll have. The single most helpful thing I tell myself when I’m struggling to write is that I have done it before, so I know I can do it again.

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Dear I Have Notes,

Here’s a question: What does it look like to be a writer who leads other writers? After all, this is essentially what high-school English teachers do. How do you teach, lead, and facilitate growth, while also embracing and honoring the deeply personal, complex, and fluid nature of writing?

— A Teacher in PA

Dear Teacher,

This is such a wonderful question, though I feel certain you already know far more about this topic than I do. I know that teachers always have curricula to consider, but I think it’s ideal if you’re able to assign a wide range of writing assignments to your students, including free- or creative-writing exercises where the primary goal is experimentation and self-expression. You can ask them questions to get them thinking about their own goals; students aren’t always asked what they want to learn about writing or what they are most interested in exploring through it. What do they appreciate most in a story? What kinds of stories do they want to tell? Creative growth happens when we are excited about what we’re creating, and I think we tend to learn the most about our own writing—our strengths, our habits, our hopes, our deepest curiosities—when we are given the freedom to play, for lack of a better word, and try new things without fear of judgment or failure.

When I think about which elements of high-school English class were most helpful and encouraging to me as a writer, I think about the days when we talked about what we were reading, in guided but flexible discussions led by our teachers. We were frequently asked to share our opinions, both positive and negative, about the books, plays, and short stories we read, and encouraged to consider one another’s perspectives. We looked at writers’ narrative choices, compared their work to that of other authors, and tried to figure out how they built tension or prompted laughter or made us feel what we felt. It was nothing groundbreaking, but it helped me begin to learn how to read like a writer.

That’s still how I read. I read for the pleasure of it, first and foremost, but I’m also constantly listening for the author’s voice, trying to analyze what they’re doing and learn from it if I can. At the same time, I don’t believe that reading and writing are skills to be mastered, by picking up a particular technique or supplying the “right” answer. I recently found out that an excerpt from my first book is on a high-school standardized test, and while I’m always honored when students read my work, I’m not kidding when I tell you that I read the first few questions and had absolutely no idea which answers the exam writers were looking for. I think the most important questions a student can be asked about something they’ve read are: Did reading this change your thinking in any way? How did it make you feel?

Reading, and thinking deeply about what you’ve read, is the most important thing a writer of any age can do. Your students are clearly so important to you, as is their development as readers, writers, and storytellers—I have a feeling that you’re already doing much to help them and leading, as a writer and a teacher, by example.

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My next book, A Living Remedy, is now available for pre-order.