Writing and enthusiasm
Steve Pavlina explains that the method he’d been taught in school—a highly structured writing process of organizing what to say before it’s written—tends to produce dull writing, but starting from enthusiasm results in articles which are a pleasure to write and are apt to be more fun and memorable to read.
Inspirational energy has a half life of about 24 hours. If I act on an idea immediately (or at least within the first few hours), I feel optimally motivated, and I can surf that wave of energy all the way to clicking “Publish.” If I sit on an idea for one day, I feel only half as inspired by it, and I have to paddle a lot more to get it done. If I sit on it for 2 days, the inspiration level has dropped by 75%, and for all practical purposes, the idea is dead. If I try to write it at that point, it feels like pulling teeth. It’s much better for me to let it go and wait for a fresh wave. There will always be another wave, so there’s no need to chase the ones I missed.
This looks like PJ Eby territory—it’s about the importance of pleasure as a motivator.
I find the same thing in my work. Unfortunately, the early enthusiasm has everything to do with how new the idea is and nothing to do with how good it is.
Pavlina appears to be speaking as someone who enjoys writing in itself. Most students do not. So it’s unsurprising that bludgeoning techniques for those who hate it may be counterproductive for those who like it.
(This does not mean the bludgeoning techniques are therefore a good idea.)
Of course, the bludgeoning techniques may be partly responsible for the students not enjoying writing.
There are really two independent ideas here. Taking advantage of early enthusiasm as a motivator doesn’t preclude planning. It just means that both the planning and the fleshing-out have to be done in the crucial first N hours. For me, doing planning in this time often increases my enthusiasm.
Exactly. I couldn’t get anything written if I didn’t do some amount of deliberate pre-planning. If the planning and outlining is done properly, an essay should basically write itself.
I tend to pursue new ideas quickly for a short time, then leave them unfinished (I have notes on at least three posts I intended to make here that are now stewing in post-purgatory). My first drafts of writing on the subjects tend to be meandering and disorganized.
If I actually want to finish writing something or appreciate the result, I need to plan it out. This usually makes it easier for me to fill in the bulk and much happier with the result.
Same here.
Although I also tend to find that my enjoyment of the writing process increases once I’ve got a certain amount of stuff out on the screen. So my writing process looks something like inspiration → boredom/dislike for idea → enjoyment and satisfaction at pulling information together into a coherent whole, and most of my ideas get stuck in that valley of boredom and dislike for the idea.
I don’t think I experience this problem too much. When I have an idea that seems important, I tend to revisit periodically, so I will continue writing. If I have an idea which doesn’t seem that important, but I’m interested in, I usually drop it. Of course, maybe this is purely a selection effect.
I am a person who used to hate writing and now finds it mildly fun, so perhaps David_Gerard’s point applies.
To generalize from one example: I experience this a lot. I find that ideas are interesting for a few days at most, after which point they are mind-numbingly boring. I’m curious, does anyone else experience this?
I used to have this problem a lot, and it still bugs me at times. However, I discovered I could get round it by writing a rough text riding the first wave of motivation. It needs to be in proper form, notes won’t usually do.
I can then leave it for a while and get back to the text in 2-5 days, regaining about 75% of the original enthusiasm. An additional advantage is that this method of revisiting tends to produce more coherent texts, too.
I definitely do, though for me “inspirational energy” can have an even shorter half-life than a day, at least when it comes to writing. I’ve lost interest in ideas when I’ve only been without the opportunity to turn them into writing for a couple of hours or so.