What am I doing when I am doing writing?

Process-driven writing

Process-driven writing is writing your way into what you’re trying to say

Feelings: quiet mind, focused, ideas indistinct but alluring, to stoke curiosity

Considerations

time-intensive | dances with readings and sources | humbling | productively fuzzy | necessary, but has chimeras: (1) the lure of endless epiphanies, (2) mistaking research for production

Production-driven writing

Production-driven writing is writing for your actual, not imagined, deliverables

Feelings: process-blocked, interruptible, to stoke accomplishment

Considerations

less CPU and more RAM | structural | mechanical (grammar, punctuation, copyediting) | also necessary, but has chimeras: (1) getting lost in tools, (2) mistaking labour for insight

Random tips

use Word (not Scrivener, Markdown, XML, etc.) | keep a night table notepad | treat your mind/body regularly with respect (eat, sleep, exercise) | write for right now, not for your future masterpiece | maybe not kill your darlings, but put them gently into a coma for later use | find a way to drive things forward every (school!) day | when you get stuck, follow curiosity, not expectations | learn to say "no, for now," if you worry about disappointing people | your supervisor(s) do not hate you | absence of praise is not negative critique | keep it simple: tell them what you are about to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you just told them | focus on what you're supposed to actually deliver | beware time bandits | when you get overwhelmed, imagine being done | set boundaries that work for you, not others

*** please share responsibly, and with credit to Kim S Shortreed, 2025, as needed ***