(seed planted — june 2024)
reconfiguring my relationship to online writing and overcoming the perfectionistic fear to exposing unfinished work
I've been finding the practice of writing first drafts with a computer weirdly blocking lately. Scoping out novelty and idea exploration with a digital document gets me routinely in the habit of starting and stopping. When the creative process of writing is happening on the computer, flow miraculously strikes as an experience where my fingers race to try and keep stride with the thoughts. But I'm likely to get lost in the woods of unfinished trails, or to buy into the idea that I’m in a sprint and must capture it all.
There’s this habit I do often with ambitious computer based writing projects. Where I’ll start a sentence then in the middle, completely abandon it, leave a space, and stamp it with a period. Then start a completely different thought. It’s become a mental reminder to return back to the thought and finish it later. Though it's mostly chaos and leads to abandonment, and those mountains of piled unfinished sentences never see completion. The need to refine before reaching a finish line is an anti-pattern. It dooms all work to dissipate like a mirage, and accompany the other ghosts of projects unfinished.
There’s something else I noticed: I never experience this blocking neurosis when I’m writing in a notebook with a pen. The pressure eases. Flow in analogue feels like being one with the page. Being attuned to the senses, at ease, and enjoying the process. I’m finishing my sentences, because I’m not chasing eloquence or beauty. I don’t feel tempted to return back to the start of the paragraph, re-read, switch to editing mode, or want to architect the sections of my work before I’ve even begun (causing the infamous start-stop experience of block). Physically it’s already written. It’s there. It exists.
Writing online doesn’t call for the same set of processes occurring in your brain. The “efficiency” you lose out on in analogue forces linearity through slowing down, which feels impossible to replicate with a device (unless you’re deliberately trying to click slower or type at 50 words per minute less). You have to contend with the relationship you have with screens and distraction as another factor within the process. How much of the creative writing process do you really want to hand over to devices (both these rushed habits and my machines)?
I'm experimenting with an online writing technique called "computer as typewriter" where if it's a first draft, one must treat the backspace key as if it does not exist. Never erase a word and don't try to iterate. What's interesting about this technique is it forces me to deliberately slow down. I notice the tension in wanting to type faster. Each letter becomes a constraint as it is typed. The path of possibility narrows like a mid-game Scrabble board. Boundaries contract and a different form of creativity emerges.
So if you are blocked on the computer, switch back to the medium of analogue. Or play with a different technique such as the typewriter above. Life and craft are a series of experiments. Treat the computer stage of building an essay as another opportunity for flow. Play with the first draft from paper. Copying each sentence calls for an opportunity to pause and simultaneously edit or refine. But the work and thoughts, at least, are already there. It also opens up opportunities to research and scour the internet for aesthetic aid, or that one quote, or that one book reference which could enhance the essay or written piece.
I love technology so much that I get caught up in a completely different mode of operating, where it feels like a fight when I’m trying to just write. Or explore an idea to its width’s end. I’ve also noticed that whenever I open up a blank document, I blank too. And I lean on my physical notebooks or journal entries as a kick start, anyways. The other thing that takes the pressure off is the constant insight that all first drafts (written or online) are usually shit. It doesn't matter if it's good right now, it just needs to exist.
- Shitty First Drafts by Anne Lammott: https://wrd.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/1-Shitty First Drafts.pdf
- Writing Terribly: The First Draft Struggle: https://rachelsandell.com/2021/10/16/writing-terribly-the-first-draft-struggle/
- First drafts - Austin Kleon: https://austinkleon.com/2018/04/30/first-drafts/