'OMG No!' says your writing self

So should you go there? And what's going on?

Via

Jennie Godfrey

, I’ve come across the always-interesting

Clover Stroud

exploring why thinking that there’s a ‘right’ writing process - and dashing off down that road, buying the notebooks or putting up the corkboard - is a distraction from the real need, which is to discern your own right process. I restacked Clover’s post(£), saying

Lots of wisdom here. Part of learning to write is learning your own process. Which isn’t to say ignoring what good writers say about how they write: if you get that little tingle that says it might suit you, then try it. But those writers are not you, the virtues and vices of their process for them have evolved as part of their personality and not yours, and what they do is not a recipe that will ensure that you, in your turn, Get It Right, let alone write a prize-winner/bestseller as they have.

Having said all that - if rather than a mild ‘no, not for me’ your reaction is full-on horror, then it might be worth sitting with that for a little, and asking yourself what fears that horror is fending off. Is it possible that a part is terrified what might emerge? What kind of thin-end might it be afraid this the wedge of? (OK, not my finest sentence. I’ve got a cold. Please don’t judge me.)

I can feel an Itch of Writing post coming on...

So here I am, as so often in the last nearly-eighteen years, settling down on the Itch to think that last bit out further: the horrified ‘Oh, God, no!’ reaction that you may feel when someone sitting on a platform, or at the head of your workshop table, suggests you should try doing things a certain way.

Photo by Roger Bradshaw on Unsplash