What a generous post - thank you so much for sharing in so much detail. As I was reading it made me feel calm, not just your writing style, which always soothes me (thank you) but because of your nourishing approach to writing a book. It's reassuring we don't have to tolerate frazzled nervous systems during the process. I'm a big walker too, I believe I wouldn't be able to write anything decent without my daily walking practice or perhaps have the confidence to share it. For me walking and writing go hand in hand. Can't wait to read your next book 😊
I am a the beginning of a writing journey in my MA at Christchurch Canterbury. I have always written as an artist and now am allowing a year out to explore . So much of what you say rings true . Thank you for sharing. After being written off at school in English ( I wasn’t going to Oxford or Cambridge as a top set member) I am loving the support and challenge of a very interesting course. An older student I am learning to make sure I keep a record of thoughts and ideas and where needed referencing. So I am just setting out as a mature student( 68) still doing the art. your books have been an inspiration over the past years as I love your interest and joy in subjects. I hope the new book weaves its way into the light . Alex Le Rossignol
What a great post to start the day. So generous in your openness to share what works for you. Found this really inspiring, thank you. The part that sticks with me the most is just a small part - on having a new book/project notebook that sits alongside your everyday notebook. This has caused me anxiety in the past, to the point of it almost derailing projects! (Isn’t the brain a strange one!) Worries about writing in the “wrong” one.
I also found the insight about needing to write in a different space from working. I have this, when I think about it I wonder if it’s increasingly common with more working from home. I, of course, thought it was cause I was doing it wrong. I’m going to embrace the move to the other corner of the room!
Thank you so much. You are so right, writing it is not about time it is about space. To create the space we need to deliver the words already in us. Thank you!
Wonderful post to wake up to! What a generous thing to share. I've been learning as I go, finding fiction, poetry and CNF to be wildly different in the approach I take. But I need better organisation. Being AuDHD, ideas come pelting and I'm lucky if I can catch them all down. The novel was mad, messy brainstorming and idea maps on A3 paper, then 2k words a day Mon-Fri til 70k words. So much editing required. The memoir has been voice notes on walks, primarily, then hacking away at the transcript. I bookmark tabs of research and then lose them. I love the idea of saving more than just a 'dump' document. Also have to change up space. And move a lot. I too, am fascinated by other writer's processes. I also love the idea of cleaning physical space. Thank you x
I LOVED reading about your process! Thanks for this! Mine is so different this time around than for One and Two (because my life in general looks so different) but the core parts of my process remain solid.
I’m another fan of the proper proposal! Just handed mine in today , almost a year in the making, which is so different time wise from first two times! But I love every moment of it and yes, hard agree it serves us well! X
Thank you, Katherine - this landed in my inbox just when I needed it! I’ve been fiddling and fussing and sort of starting and sort of not starting my second book for awhile now (and also fretting over how inefficient I’m being), and your words feel like such a lovely bit of permission. The process doesn’t have to look like a clean, straight line (it probably can’t). And my work doesn’t need to take on the shape of a cubicle. All of this daydreaming and talking to myself and writing notes on random surfaces and getting really excited and then really distracted and then returning again . . . Maybe this is just what beginning looks like. And also, maybe instead of writing notes on random surfaces, I should consider a dedicated notebook.
Thanks so much for this Katherine <3 I know this is your personal process, but in sharing what works for you, I feel like I too can permit myself to build in fire breaks and do all the things that feed my creative work that don't involve being at my desk - Reading lots, walking lots, drawing lots and cuddling my dog lots mainly. (You may not have intended this but I might use this as permission to go buy a nice new notebook too!)
This is a wonderful and generous peek into your process. I never consciously kept a “process journal” until I heard Ruth Ozeki talking about it, and then I thought “oh....THAT’s what this is!” I’d been doing it in one form or another for years, but had no name for it (and then I started reading the process journals of others, like Annie Truitt’s). This is a wonderful essay--🙏🏻
This is wonderfully helpful; I'm so grateful you have shared. I am in the beginning stages of trying to write my first original work for publication (okay, that's not entirely true; I wrote things that were published in graduate school, but I'm not counting those). It would be better to say I am trying to birth my first true telling in written word/book form. It's hard! I love your writing, and some of your process sounds like what I have always done when I try and write (even academically), so that is encouraging. I'll be 50 in April, and I can't believe it has taken this long, and here I am, so, here I go. Thank you!
I have many simmer piles. I think I’ve now realised I will never write a novel. I did ‘finish’ one once but an author friend told me it needed to be double the word count, from 70,000 - 140,000 to even be considered, and the effort of expanding the story (in my view unnecessarily) killed it. I might venture into short stories and continue with my poems, as the ME/CFS brain fog doesn’t allow the extended research now needed.
This was really interesting Katherine, I have always imagined you in a warm small room, surrounded by piles and piles of books, papers tumbling, and tea cups and old biscuit plates balanced atop your notes. Turrets and garden shed retreats always strike me as cold. And I don’t do cold well.
What a gracious peek behind the curtain! I am working on my second book now, and it's a baggy, unruly monster at the moment. You've given me some ideas about how to rein it in without breaking its spirit. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
As always, Katherine, your openness provides me with hope that I will complete my first book, even if it's not completed until I'm 65! (I'm 60 during this writing).
I greatly appreciate the way you give life to the creative process. After working most of my adult life in social work and nonprofit executive leadership, your encouragement to change my mindset from being an "office worker" to the ebb and flow of the creative process resonated deeply (one of many things that resonated in this essay). As Hannah shared in her comment, your writing also soothes and comforts me and has helped me through several difficult seasons in my own life.
You are a gem! I appreciate you and this community. 🥰
Thank you so much for sharing . The only long-form project I have completed is my dissertation a few years ago and your description of the way, when something you are writing feels so compelling, everything seems to be visible through its lens felt exactly true and has given me a very real gauge as I start something new of my own. I will keep this close at hand.
What a generous post - thank you so much for sharing in so much detail. As I was reading it made me feel calm, not just your writing style, which always soothes me (thank you) but because of your nourishing approach to writing a book. It's reassuring we don't have to tolerate frazzled nervous systems during the process. I'm a big walker too, I believe I wouldn't be able to write anything decent without my daily walking practice or perhaps have the confidence to share it. For me walking and writing go hand in hand. Can't wait to read your next book 😊
I am a the beginning of a writing journey in my MA at Christchurch Canterbury. I have always written as an artist and now am allowing a year out to explore . So much of what you say rings true . Thank you for sharing. After being written off at school in English ( I wasn’t going to Oxford or Cambridge as a top set member) I am loving the support and challenge of a very interesting course. An older student I am learning to make sure I keep a record of thoughts and ideas and where needed referencing. So I am just setting out as a mature student( 68) still doing the art. your books have been an inspiration over the past years as I love your interest and joy in subjects. I hope the new book weaves its way into the light . Alex Le Rossignol
I hope you really enjoy the course - some fabulous people teach there!
I’m excited for you, Alexandra 😊
What a great post to start the day. So generous in your openness to share what works for you. Found this really inspiring, thank you. The part that sticks with me the most is just a small part - on having a new book/project notebook that sits alongside your everyday notebook. This has caused me anxiety in the past, to the point of it almost derailing projects! (Isn’t the brain a strange one!) Worries about writing in the “wrong” one.
I also found the insight about needing to write in a different space from working. I have this, when I think about it I wonder if it’s increasingly common with more working from home. I, of course, thought it was cause I was doing it wrong. I’m going to embrace the move to the other corner of the room!
Thank you so much. You are so right, writing it is not about time it is about space. To create the space we need to deliver the words already in us. Thank you!
Wonderful post to wake up to! What a generous thing to share. I've been learning as I go, finding fiction, poetry and CNF to be wildly different in the approach I take. But I need better organisation. Being AuDHD, ideas come pelting and I'm lucky if I can catch them all down. The novel was mad, messy brainstorming and idea maps on A3 paper, then 2k words a day Mon-Fri til 70k words. So much editing required. The memoir has been voice notes on walks, primarily, then hacking away at the transcript. I bookmark tabs of research and then lose them. I love the idea of saving more than just a 'dump' document. Also have to change up space. And move a lot. I too, am fascinated by other writer's processes. I also love the idea of cleaning physical space. Thank you x
I LOVED reading about your process! Thanks for this! Mine is so different this time around than for One and Two (because my life in general looks so different) but the core parts of my process remain solid.
I’m another fan of the proper proposal! Just handed mine in today , almost a year in the making, which is so different time wise from first two times! But I love every moment of it and yes, hard agree it serves us well! X
Thank you, Katherine - this landed in my inbox just when I needed it! I’ve been fiddling and fussing and sort of starting and sort of not starting my second book for awhile now (and also fretting over how inefficient I’m being), and your words feel like such a lovely bit of permission. The process doesn’t have to look like a clean, straight line (it probably can’t). And my work doesn’t need to take on the shape of a cubicle. All of this daydreaming and talking to myself and writing notes on random surfaces and getting really excited and then really distracted and then returning again . . . Maybe this is just what beginning looks like. And also, maybe instead of writing notes on random surfaces, I should consider a dedicated notebook.
Thanks so much for this Katherine <3 I know this is your personal process, but in sharing what works for you, I feel like I too can permit myself to build in fire breaks and do all the things that feed my creative work that don't involve being at my desk - Reading lots, walking lots, drawing lots and cuddling my dog lots mainly. (You may not have intended this but I might use this as permission to go buy a nice new notebook too!)
This is a wonderful and generous peek into your process. I never consciously kept a “process journal” until I heard Ruth Ozeki talking about it, and then I thought “oh....THAT’s what this is!” I’d been doing it in one form or another for years, but had no name for it (and then I started reading the process journals of others, like Annie Truitt’s). This is a wonderful essay--🙏🏻
It’s such a useful thing - I only started by accident and now it’s essential.
This is wonderfully helpful; I'm so grateful you have shared. I am in the beginning stages of trying to write my first original work for publication (okay, that's not entirely true; I wrote things that were published in graduate school, but I'm not counting those). It would be better to say I am trying to birth my first true telling in written word/book form. It's hard! I love your writing, and some of your process sounds like what I have always done when I try and write (even academically), so that is encouraging. I'll be 50 in April, and I can't believe it has taken this long, and here I am, so, here I go. Thank you!
I have many simmer piles. I think I’ve now realised I will never write a novel. I did ‘finish’ one once but an author friend told me it needed to be double the word count, from 70,000 - 140,000 to even be considered, and the effort of expanding the story (in my view unnecessarily) killed it. I might venture into short stories and continue with my poems, as the ME/CFS brain fog doesn’t allow the extended research now needed.
This was really interesting Katherine, I have always imagined you in a warm small room, surrounded by piles and piles of books, papers tumbling, and tea cups and old biscuit plates balanced atop your notes. Turrets and garden shed retreats always strike me as cold. And I don’t do cold well.
What a helpful guide! Nabbing a few of these habits for my own writing practice.
Yep they certainly do! Highly recommend
What a gracious peek behind the curtain! I am working on my second book now, and it's a baggy, unruly monster at the moment. You've given me some ideas about how to rein it in without breaking its spirit. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
As always, Katherine, your openness provides me with hope that I will complete my first book, even if it's not completed until I'm 65! (I'm 60 during this writing).
I greatly appreciate the way you give life to the creative process. After working most of my adult life in social work and nonprofit executive leadership, your encouragement to change my mindset from being an "office worker" to the ebb and flow of the creative process resonated deeply (one of many things that resonated in this essay). As Hannah shared in her comment, your writing also soothes and comforts me and has helped me through several difficult seasons in my own life.
You are a gem! I appreciate you and this community. 🥰
Thank you so much for sharing . The only long-form project I have completed is my dissertation a few years ago and your description of the way, when something you are writing feels so compelling, everything seems to be visible through its lens felt exactly true and has given me a very real gauge as I start something new of my own. I will keep this close at hand.