(Posted on quora for the question asking about the writing process of authors)
I will just add my writing process and experience to the many answers below. When I went through these answers, many were surprisingly similar to what I do and I guess what many writers do. Not very surprising though, this is diametrically opposite to what most people perceive what writers do.
Writers have many ideas that keep popping in their head based on their interactions with the world and their own thoughts about the past. Sometimes, one of these ideas becomes strong enough to be put on a paper. Most writers have many such ideas documented in their journals, their writing software or simple editors. Several writers try to capture such ideas everywhere. They carry their journals everywhere in their pockets and note those ideas. Some do it on their phones. This is very well captured in some movies about writers, like Patterson.
(Patterson writing a poem before he starts on his day job of a bus driver)
Most of the writers, like I do, have a writing routine. I wake up every day at 5am and sit in front of my computer with all the ideas that are captured in the writing software. Unless I am working on a novel that needs to be completed with a deadline, I write on multiple projects at the same time. You start with one of your many ideas, the idea that really motivates you to write on that particular day and crank at the keyboard for next couple of hours with small tea break.
In dues time, if you are persistent enough, you will write many, many words, paragraphs, pages and eventually a book.
Yesterday, in an interview, Win Butler was asked a question about his songwriting process. Interesting he referred to “Negative Theology” while answering that. The interviewer was hinting at becoming monotonous while writing newer songs and Win thought that being monotonous would be the last thing they would be. According to him, every song is unique in its own way and there is no specific process to get to a good song. Every piece of writing arrives in this world in its own, unique and unpredictable way that is specific to that particular song.
Negative Theology
His reference to Negative Theology was very interesting. Negative Theology is a branch of Christianity that believes that describing or characterizing God can be done only with negative attributes and not with positive attributes. You can say million things about what a God is not but not a single thing about what a God is. The strains of that kind of thinking are found all over the world and one of the most famous of them all is the saying found in Upanishads that says “Neti, neti”, which describes the ultimate reality as “Not that, not this”.
Transcendent and Immanent
This line of thinking brings in the two interesting perspectives about God or the ultimate reality posited in Upanishads called the Brahman. One branch thinks that God is transcendent which means God is above the ordinary manifested reality and exists separately from the same. The other line of thinking may be thought as the philosophy of immanence of God which conveys the existence of God in every manifested thing. God exists in everything and leaves His mark on all that exists. The two lines of thinking are by no means the only ones or even separate. In some philosophical thoughts, God is thought to be both transcendent and immanent, which means He exists in the world and also apart from the world. In some lines of thinking the two are different types of the same underlying reality, somewhat like Brahman and Maya of the Upanishads.
Implications for daily living
The two lines of thinking can have implications for daily lives of serious philosophical individuals who want to live a disciplined life based on principles. A purely transcendental philosophy can lead to an ascetic perspective. Since God does not exist in the real world, everything in the real world is to be shunned, argues the ascetic line of thinking. Similarly the degree of belief you choose in either, would lead you to a specific way of life that truly represents the underlying philosophy. Win’s line of thinking, which seems to indicate that activities like songwriting can be ultimately a means of sensing the ultimate reality through the principle of “Not that, not this” can be called a “Middle way” that does not fall for any of the extremes and allows one to live a passionate life that is disciplined. Interestingly it may be followed without even believing in a philosophical principle. To remain interested in songwriting or any other activity that a human being pursues, one of the key requirement is to discover the novelty of that activity as time passes and not to get bored about the monotony. This philosophy allows one to pursue that and gives an added advantage of not missing on the transcendental path.
Manik Bal’s short story collection, “Her Revenge” is available now. With this diverse collection of short stories, Manik Bal continues to explore the, and the mundane in the bizarre.
