In our era of Substack journalism, Instagram poetry, and Pinterest worthy penmanship, it seems easier than ever to become a habitual writer. Why not just set up a Substack profile or crack the spine of that new journal and get writing? For many of us, including myself, writing privately or for the public has never felt so daunting. It seems we are one misspelling or poorly worded sentence away from being told to step away from the keyboard and sit politely in the corner, dunce hat in hand (and let me tell you how much stress this very sentence is causing me). Likewise, the ever-looming possibility that someone will get a hold of my morning pages journal posthumously, well, that is too great a threat.
The constant feeling that we are being observed, combined with the nagging possibility that even a scribble of notes could make us on the internet, has resulted, for some of us, in a general anxiety about writing—for an audience or simply for oneself.
Whether this anxiety stems from reading perfectly curated articles by those talented internet scribes or whether it stems from an inability to create an aesthetic page of handwritten prose, we can experience endless blocks when trying to develop a habitual writing practice. Dorothy Parker herself (the late and great columnist for The New Yorker) was said to habitually submit her articles way past deadline, mere hours before they should have been submitted, leaving little time for revisions. So, what then? Are those of us deathly afraid of being perceived, even in the privacy of our own journals, reserved to one hundred years of editorial solitude before getting the chance to develop a habitual writing practice? Let’s hope not.
Dorothy Parker
Let’s talk about Dorothy. Dorothy Parker was a columnist for The New Yorker and well known for her critical, sarcastic, and devastating book reviews (as a matter of fact, individuals in her close circle created The New Yorker. So don’t forget your holiday cards for those entrepreneurial types in your contacts!). Dorothy was known to submit articles way after deadline and was highly critical of her own work, spending exorbitant amounts of time on articles and wrestling endlessly with her poems and short stories. Despite these blocks and anxieties, she persevered, ultimately writing and publishing hundreds of articles, poems, and short stories throughout her lifetime.
Dorothy was the writer constantly fighting against the clock, against her own obstacles, and against perfectionism. Yet she still managed to overcome those blocks to become a great writer of the 20th-century. So, what is the difference (besides her endless wit) between Dorothy and the rest of us? Plainly, Dorothy is a writer above all else. What often happens when we are writing is that we suddenly become everything except a writer. For most of us, once we pick up a pen or sit at the keyboard, we become the editor, the critic, the audience. Instead of simply a book reviewer, a columnist, a diarist, a poet. The inability to simply be a writer, to allow thoughts and ideas free range on the page, is what sets apart those who merely aspire and those who do.
Eventually, these mental frameworks cause us to either stop writing altogether, or we are forced into a breakthrough, laying down those many “hats” and surrendering to the desire to write freely, no matter how messy or difficult that surrender may feel.
“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.”
— Virginia Woolf
The “Columnist Mindset”
A structured way to accomplish this surrender is by setting deadlines. We could call this the “columnist mindset.” What’s most important about this mindset is that it should leave all of the other tasks up to someone else. You are not the editor, audience, or critic while writing. You are simply the writer letting those quirky turns of phrase fly wherever they wish and leaving the mistakes for your editor to fix or roll their eyes at later. You have a deadline, your work will be published whether it’s good or bad, and that impending deadline also means an indefinite stop to a particular writing project. Approaching writing in this way can provide space to write authentically and leave room for raw, free-flowing thought and novelty.
Whether or not Dorothy actually met her deadlines is beside the point. What matters is that this deadline based mentality helps to develop accountability and reliability, or at the very least forces you to finish with that “I work best under pressure” sort of attitude. Instead of fearing your inner editor or your audience, imagine that they’re simply waiting on you. No matter what you write, it will be good, and charming, and whatever you want it to be. Once you’ve finished, you can go back in and let your inner critic go wild (or, if you’re just journaling, slam that cover shut and move on with your life until your next journaling session). Set a deadline, collect your thoughts, and then just write, and write, and write.
Clarice Lispector
Let’s shift from the deadline based habitual writing practice to an applicable writing method. Another fabulous creator who wrote both articles and fiction was Clarice Lispector. Clarice, like Dorothy, wrote hundreds of articles for The Journal of Brazil, along with six highly popular novels, including Near to the Wild Heart and The Passion According to G.H. Clarice’s writing differed from Dorothy’s, namely because she wrote in a stream of consciousness style. Her writing manifests like bubbling laughter, or, to be more grotesque, like vomit. Her words flow in an unrestricted and often surprising way, and this style allowed her to document raw and immediate thoughts. Her articles were more free-flowing stream of consciousness, often relaying experiences in her day-to-day or providing general social commentary, while her fiction employed a structured stream of consciousness style within a specific narrative context.
What sets Clarice apart is her unapologetic veracity and curiosity. While difficult to pinpoint, this kind of authenticity often comes from a place that is imaginatively rich, abundant, and simply authentic. She was a writer working as if under a trance, engulfed by a fever and urgency to write that demanded recognition and an outlet. She managed to produce an abundance of work by utilizing a style that constantly demanded both surrender and play. In the same way that we can wear many hats while writing, we can also wear many identities. We may yearn to write poems like Keats or novels like Pessoa, but one of the greatest benefits stream of consciousness provides is that it often demands spontaneity and honesty. It creates little time to emulate other writers and instead insists that we write with urgent immediacy and truth.
Stream of Consciousness
To unburden our inner writer who is perpetually emulating others, resistant, or blocked, which inevitably slows our process, we can employ stream of consciousness to write with a spark of hungry curiosity (dare I say, mischief) in a way that is fueled by a desire to discover. Whether you use this as a way to jump-start journaling or to generate ideas for an article or project, stream of consciousness provides a path to start writing in a low-stakes way.
This method often asks very little of us but gives a lot in return. It asks, simply, that we write. No matter how weird, strange, incoherent, or incorrect our writing may be. It puts us in a space where anything goes, and all writing becomes a contribution to our development. At the same time, it can yield prose that is less forced, more sincere and genuine, and may even help us to understand ourselves better.
Final Thoughts
Writing, like any craft, takes time to learn and develop. But without individualized tools and an inner instinct to urge us forward, it can prove even more difficult to develop a habitual practice that can withstand the anxieties and blocks that influence us. In order to write, one must simply write. However, by addressing and putting aside bad habits and poor ways of approaching writing, we can carve out paths to write rapidly and truthfully. Eventually, you may even find that the experience becomes more pleasurable and easier to show up for each day.
You may endeavor to take on a combination of techniques to just get something, anything, down on paper. Whichever path you choose, I hope you’ll someday learn to tear an author to shreds in three short paragraphs like Dorothy or lay down a labyrinth of prose like Clarice. And then, just write and write and write.
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