The Beginner’s Guide to the Writing Process

Many of you are students or have been students once upon a time; at any rate, this guide will reaffirm that yes, you are doing it right. And for those of you who are on the road to becoming a student or even possibly just an essayist, blogger, novelist, poet, or any kind of author – pay attention to the following post.

The Beginner’s Guide to the Writing Process:

What you will need:

• An artificially fuelled ambition
• Everything
• Nothing
• Writing tools (optional)

Step One: Get Started

So, you have recently been assigned an essay for class or an article for a paper that has a strict deadline. Deadlines are important, but you become so good at the writing process that deadlines become less and less important as time goes on. You have the writing prompt and you have a vague idea in your mind of what you may want to write about. Set that thought aside until further notice. File the assignment in your folder and say to yourself “I’ve got lots of time between now and the deadline in order to get this done and I don’t have any plans so this writing is going to be the best writing I’ve ever done because I will spend so much time on it.”

Step Two: Plan Your Life

Make plans for your social life. How can you possibly stay cooped up in your house this whole time and expect to be inspired to write your newest masterpiece if you don’t have any experiences to draw from? Right. These plans include:

• Movie dates with significant others and/or friends
• Social events with your colleagues that you just can’t cancel again
• Performances at various care homes and other venues: how can you possibly say no?
• Birthday parties of your friends and family
• Being chauffeur for your drunk friends
• Making an effort with your S.O.’s family members
• Going shopping for shoes and wallets: both have worn out and made horrible impacts on your life. This needed to change.
• Start a blog with your friends (in which you practice the writing process within the writing process: Meta. Ooooo)

These plans have allowed you to do sufficient amounts of people watching and analyzing which has fueled your creativity for your writing project.

Step Three: Clean and Organize

This step follows the mantra “Organize your life to organize your mind”. How can you focus on this important project if you have so many messes distracting you from the matters at hand? These must be taken care of. Start with the dishes, then wipe off all of your counters, tables, cupboard doors, doorknobs, clean out the fridge and clean in there too. Reorganize all of the contents in your cupboards: spices, dishes, pantry items, pots, etc. Then tidy your living room, vacuum and dust, take out the garbage, mow the lawn or shovel the walk. Following this you will have to give you room a good going-over. Start a load of laundry, change your bedding, clean off your dresser and any other surface that is cluttered with items from your pockets, start a change jar. Reorganize your book shelf, because you’ve picked up a couple of new books when you went shopping earlier. Then tackle the bathroom, and might as well do it with a toothbrush. Start with the sink, then tub, then toilet. Shine up the mirrors and wipe the steam marks off of the walls. Hang up a fresh set of towels. Your house should be sufficiently clean now to focus on your project. If you don’t feel like you’re quite there yet, then don’t be afraid to wash the windows and wipe the baseboards.

Step Four: Eat

Right when you’re about to sit down your stomach starts to make noises, you’ve been working so hard cleaning your house and working on this writing project that it’s made you utterly famished. You head to the fridge and realize there is nothing there. You threw everything out remember? So, because you can’t write without having fed yourself and you don’t want to cook because you just cleaned your house, you hop in your car and head to the grocery store for some snacks. Pick up a big bottle of pop, various bags of chips, some sort of chocolate (whether it’s cookies or mini-eggs), and maybe a nut mix. If you’re feeling rather good about yourself you also buy a bunch of bananas and maybe a few apples.  Go home and put the food away as meticulously as possible. Maybe make a pretty fruit bowl for your kitchen table centre piece. Eat your snacks while your browse tumblr (or tinder for those lovers out there). Your sticky fingers are too much for you to type right now, so you’ll wait till after the next handful. Maybe the next... or the next...

Step Five: Netflix

Your friends have been really impressed with your eagerness to hang out lately so they shoot you a text to chill. You tell them that you can’t because you’re on a roll with this essay and you really want to make a big dent in it today. So, because you seem to not be able to think straight when it’s too quiet in your house, you turn on Netflix and put on a documentary figuring that it will help get your cognitive cogs working. Watch a whole series containing five 45 minute episodes on the ancient Pyramids. Meanwhile you’re texting your friends (whom you could have been chilling with) about how cool the Pyramids are.

Step Six:

Repeat Step Four.

Step Seven:

Repeat Step Three.

Step Eight: Finish Up!

It is finally the day before this project is due and you feel confident in your writing. I mean, you’ve been working on it for quite some time and you’ve had a very productive few days. You open up your document and you have written the title. You sit there and scratch your hives that have developed due to stress and wonder where the time has gone and that you literally have three hours to throw this thing together. You take out the assignment from Step One and find that one of the prompts is about Pyramids. You thank the Lord. You agree with yourself that you are very lucky this time and you vow never to wait this long to start writing ever again.

Step Nine:

Receive next assignment and repeat from Step One.

This guide is an accurate portrayal of real life experiences gathered from many people writing many different things. This guide is not responsible for any panic attacks, medical incidents, chastisement from work, or friendship and relationship issues. Cleaning supplies not included.

Dillon