Most of us are familiar with the writing process at some level. Whether you are a writer or an English professor, as I am, you have - no doubt - used the writing process in some form in your personal and/or professional lives. From brainstorming ideas for a project, outlining main ideas, attending to details of a task, tweaking those details, and reviewing the overall workflow, you have, indeed, engaged in some form of the writing process. My students dread the process; they prefer, instead, to do what I call flash writing: write it in a flash, and turn it in! I get it; I’ve been there, but have you ever considered how similar the writing process is to life itself?
Think about it: Our ideas start forming from the day we are born based on our immediate environment, and our closest interactions foster early language skills. Simple articulations - like mommy, daddy, good, yes, no, bad, dog, cat - function as bullet points in the early development of our outline, if you will, of how we see the world. We enter kindergarten as the earliest draft of ourselves; and we revise this draft, arguably, for the rest of our lives, but especially throughout our teenage years. We enter college, or the work world, as the best draft of ourselves, and we spend the rest of our adult lives - hopefully, but no judgement, polishing this version of ourselves.
Wherever you are in your “process,” embrace it as just that, a process. You didn’t become this version of you overnight. Whatever goal or resolution you set for yourself, approach that as your revision process; the prefix “pro” indicates favorable steps (process) toward some measurable goal (progress). Wherever you are in your process - whether writing a book, working on a project, or preparing for an interview or even a hot date - remember: Good work takes time; so embrace the process and all of the drafts you reveal along the way. Your audience awaits!
