The Writing Process
“Write in white heat, and revise in cold blood.”
I signed up for writing classes taught by some well-known authors at a downtown museum. For me it meant hurrying after work in the rush hour traffic to the other side of town. But no hassles were unbearable, when the desire to write is a cry from the heart.
The speaker was my professor in graduate school, a columnist for a national daily. There were around fifty of us in class. Some came in jeans and t-shirts, others in suits and ties. I sat in the back, beside a girl I recognized as the weather presenter on the late evening news.
She began by asking us questions. Why do you take writing classes? Because we want to be writers. Why do you want to be writers? Because we have something to say.
And she said, “As a writer, I have just one advice to give to you. And that is to write in white heat, and revise in cold blood.”
Then she explained what she meant.
We make such a big deal out of the writing process. But there are no secrets, no tricks involved in writing. All you need to do is recognize and follow three steps:
1) The pre-writing step. First, ask yourself who your models are. It’s hard to imagine a writer who doesn’t read. Do you have a favourite author from childhood? Or maybe you listened to the stories your grandmother told you?. Or think about the historian who lives in your town – the wise old man/woman who remembers everything, or what, when, where, to whom and why something happened in the past.
Or maybe you’ve led an interesting life. If so, then outline your experiences. Do research, if you have to. A writer is a craftsman who creates objects with his hands. Your material is life, and your tools are pen and paper. Use them to write the story only you can tell.
2) The writing step. Once that is clear, you go ahead and do it. Write in white heat. Write your thoughts, your ideas, and all other things you want to write about someday. Write your dreams down, before they vanish forever in the light of day. Write like there’s no tomorrow.
It doesn’t matter what form your writing takes, as long as you keep a record. Start a journal. Write everyday, even if you don’t know how to start. Practice free writing. Write about your agonies in writing, if you have to. Sooner or later, you’ll get there. The journey is the destination.
3) The post-writing step. Have you written everything you wanted to say? Are you relieved to get it off your chest? Then it’s time to revise in cold blood.
Do you have a good grasp of grammar? Do your tenses agree? How about prepositions? They’re probably the hardest things to learn in any language. Because with prepositions you don’t follow any rules, you play them by ear. If it doesn’t sound right, it isn’t.
Then there’s the subjunctive mode, a favorite among Broadway songwriters. No idea what this is? Just think about the songs “If Ever I Would Leave You” from Camelot, and “If I Loved You” from Carousel. Look closely. It sounds like a negative tense, but it’s really a conditional future.
If you can’t hack complicated tenses like that, take a language refresher course. Or write in a simple, clear and straightforward way. Don’t engage in excessive writing. Your writing will sound energetic, if you’ll learn how to trim off the fat.
And check your vocabulary usage. Check your facts and your sources. A writer becomes an authority if he always checks the accuracy of his words.
Finishing her talk, the speaker gave us an assignment. We were to “write our thing”, keeping in mind the three steps she outlined. Use a piece of writing that inspired you, she said, and make it your model for a personal essay, or a how-to article about baking Christmas cookies, for example.
As we broke up for the night, a crowd of admirers gathered around her. When it was my turn to say hello, I introduced myself as a former student. It was an awkward moment. I was just a wannabe shaking hands with an authority from the field. I went home feeling frustrated.
That night I looked over my pithy portfolio of writings gathering dust on the shelves. Choosing what I thought were the best of the lot, I retyped them and sent them for evaluation.
Two weeks later I got my manuscript back. With it came a handwritten, personal note.
“You write well!” it said. The piece about your grandfather could use more details to sustain the feel of nostalgia. About your poems, you are right – they need more work. Why not ask another poet to critique them? But your prose is already ‘there’. You don’t need writing workshops, just go ahead and write!”
It’s been so many years since then. I left home to settle down in another country, got married and raised a family. For a while I forgot about writing, and the desire crying out from the heart got stifled in life’s daily struggles.
But the dream never died, and somehow I climbed out of the hole I dug myself into. Then one day I heard that my mentor died of a sudden illness, while travelling in a far-off country. God bless her. I can’t thank her enough, and everyday I remember her words.
Just write. In white heat. Then revise in cold blood.
(Note: This happened around June 1993, when the Ayala Museum started offering writing workshops by noted writers like Barbara Gonzalez and Sheila Coronel. The tutor in the story is the late author, literature professor and food writer Doreen Fernandez. Marga Ortigas, recently a CNN war correspondent in Baghdad, was the girl at the back of the room. A few months later, I left to study in Austria, where I still live today. Except where noted, the article is based on my original lecture notes.)
_________
*First published in Life Today magazine, August 2004.
**Published online as “Write in White Heat, Revise in Cold Blood” in Our Own Voice magazine, September 2005
I signed up for writing classes taught by some well-known authors at a downtown museum. For me it meant hurrying after work in the rush hour traffic to the other side of town. But no hassles were unbearable, when the desire to write is a cry from the heart.
The speaker was my professor in graduate school, a columnist for a national daily. There were around fifty of us in class. Some came in jeans and t-shirts, others in suits and ties. I sat in the back, beside a girl I recognized as the weather presenter on the late evening news.
She began by asking us questions. Why do you take writing classes? Because we want to be writers. Why do you want to be writers? Because we have something to say.
And she said, “As a writer, I have just one advice to give to you. And that is to write in white heat, and revise in cold blood.”
Then she explained what she meant.
We make such a big deal out of the writing process. But there are no secrets, no tricks involved in writing. All you need to do is recognize and follow three steps:
1) The pre-writing step. First, ask yourself who your models are. It’s hard to imagine a writer who doesn’t read. Do you have a favourite author from childhood? Or maybe you listened to the stories your grandmother told you?. Or think about the historian who lives in your town – the wise old man/woman who remembers everything, or what, when, where, to whom and why something happened in the past.
Or maybe you’ve led an interesting life. If so, then outline your experiences. Do research, if you have to. A writer is a craftsman who creates objects with his hands. Your material is life, and your tools are pen and paper. Use them to write the story only you can tell.
2) The writing step. Once that is clear, you go ahead and do it. Write in white heat. Write your thoughts, your ideas, and all other things you want to write about someday. Write your dreams down, before they vanish forever in the light of day. Write like there’s no tomorrow.
It doesn’t matter what form your writing takes, as long as you keep a record. Start a journal. Write everyday, even if you don’t know how to start. Practice free writing. Write about your agonies in writing, if you have to. Sooner or later, you’ll get there. The journey is the destination.
3) The post-writing step. Have you written everything you wanted to say? Are you relieved to get it off your chest? Then it’s time to revise in cold blood.
Do you have a good grasp of grammar? Do your tenses agree? How about prepositions? They’re probably the hardest things to learn in any language. Because with prepositions you don’t follow any rules, you play them by ear. If it doesn’t sound right, it isn’t.
Then there’s the subjunctive mode, a favorite among Broadway songwriters. No idea what this is? Just think about the songs “If Ever I Would Leave You” from Camelot, and “If I Loved You” from Carousel. Look closely. It sounds like a negative tense, but it’s really a conditional future.
If you can’t hack complicated tenses like that, take a language refresher course. Or write in a simple, clear and straightforward way. Don’t engage in excessive writing. Your writing will sound energetic, if you’ll learn how to trim off the fat.
And check your vocabulary usage. Check your facts and your sources. A writer becomes an authority if he always checks the accuracy of his words.
Finishing her talk, the speaker gave us an assignment. We were to “write our thing”, keeping in mind the three steps she outlined. Use a piece of writing that inspired you, she said, and make it your model for a personal essay, or a how-to article about baking Christmas cookies, for example.
As we broke up for the night, a crowd of admirers gathered around her. When it was my turn to say hello, I introduced myself as a former student. It was an awkward moment. I was just a wannabe shaking hands with an authority from the field. I went home feeling frustrated.
That night I looked over my pithy portfolio of writings gathering dust on the shelves. Choosing what I thought were the best of the lot, I retyped them and sent them for evaluation.
Two weeks later I got my manuscript back. With it came a handwritten, personal note.
“You write well!” it said. The piece about your grandfather could use more details to sustain the feel of nostalgia. About your poems, you are right – they need more work. Why not ask another poet to critique them? But your prose is already ‘there’. You don’t need writing workshops, just go ahead and write!”
It’s been so many years since then. I left home to settle down in another country, got married and raised a family. For a while I forgot about writing, and the desire crying out from the heart got stifled in life’s daily struggles.
But the dream never died, and somehow I climbed out of the hole I dug myself into. Then one day I heard that my mentor died of a sudden illness, while travelling in a far-off country. God bless her. I can’t thank her enough, and everyday I remember her words.
Just write. In white heat. Then revise in cold blood.
(Note: This happened around June 1993, when the Ayala Museum started offering writing workshops by noted writers like Barbara Gonzalez and Sheila Coronel. The tutor in the story is the late author, literature professor and food writer Doreen Fernandez. Marga Ortigas, recently a CNN war correspondent in Baghdad, was the girl at the back of the room. A few months later, I left to study in Austria, where I still live today. Except where noted, the article is based on my original lecture notes.)
_________
*First published in Life Today magazine, August 2004.
**Published online as “Write in White Heat, Revise in Cold Blood” in Our Own Voice magazine, September 2005
posted by Maria-Fe Parco Ortner at 7:58 PM
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