Dive in! The pool is full of… er honey.

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I find that I’m always trying to race ahead. That I can’t get to my destination quick enough and that my goals are out of reach, even though I’m pumping my little legs as hard as they’ll go. Most of the time it feels like I’m swimming through honey while the rest of the world moves at double speed.

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I’ve noticed that I do this when I’m writing as well. Although I don’t think that’s as problematic as it is in everyday life. When I get into the groove of a story, ideas spill out left, right and center and it can be hard to keep up with them. So I tend to scribble dot points in the margins of my note pad, just so I don’t lose an idea. I can get so caught up in the rush of writing that I’ve been known to miss appointments and train stations, eek!

I wonder if the rushing is part of my personality, I’m a Type A personality which baABCsically means that I’m driven, ambitious but also irritable and prone to a short temper. Or I could simply be impatient, not to mention messy.  I like to imagine Jane Austen or Emily
Dickenson writing in neat straight lines with a practised and patient hand, and not my ineligible scrawl as I rush to get the story out. It’s like I vomit on the page and it comes out in little alphabet shapes that I move about into a story.

I’ve tried slowing down, making the letters resemble something from the alphabet, but then I feel like I’m swimming in honey again. My brain wants to jump out of my skull and squirt the letters all over the page to make up for the useless hands I’ve got at the end of my wrists. The strange thing is that I don’t actually have to write quickly at all. I’m an unpublished writer, so no pesky publishing deadline to meet (although it would be nice!) So I should be able to go about this writing business in a practised, patient and methodical way. Even as I write this I can hear my brain laughing at me, because that’s not going to happen any time soon.

I have noticed that the rushing happens with everything I’m writing – which is plenty. My novels, my short stories and the blog posts.

Does your personality carry over in your writing technique? Are you a rusher like me or can you go along at a leisurely pace? Words flowing like falling snowflakes. Soft, rhythmical and romantically. Also do you write in different ways for different mediums?

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33 thoughts on “Dive in! The pool is full of… er honey.”

  1. Pingback: New Year’s Resolution | L. A. Lancaster

  3. I tell people that I am an in-betweener when it comes to personality. I am neither Type A or B, I am a bit of both. With writing, I go with the flow. I allow calm to engulf me and whatever emotion I am feeling at that time, it takes over. I neither rush nor urge the writing on as I think it is important to allow it to exit the way it needs to. I am pretty consistent in this method. It works. I see no reason to change or shift it. But that’s my personality coming out: I am calm, I am peaceful, I am patient, I think before I speak, but I am also ambitious, full of emotion, sometimes have to get a handle on my temper, etc…

    So, yes & no, and a little of alladat. 🙂

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  4. I love the gif of the guy swimming in the puddles, LOL! What a great analogy ~I think personalities would have to work their way into a person’s writing technique. I write from work (I work night shift and I have a lot of time on my hands) and although the ideas for posts are harder to come by, once I have my brain wrapped around an idea- it just flows out quickly. It’s a great idea to actually WRITE out a post first on paper and jot down ideas on the side so you don’t forget. I actually just type out whatever is on my mind and then have to re-arrange the paragraphs at the end because they are all out of order- much like my personality- LOL! Kinda all over the place 🙂 Great post!

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  5. I am un-rushed, yet driven by spontaneous moments. My writing is pounding the keys because I can’t get the words out fast enough. It is not a methodical, focused time. It just happens and flows like a river. -Jennie-

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  7. Definitely a rusher; and definitely irritable and prone to short temper when I feel things are going too slowly (usually at the editing stage, like now).

    Incidentally, I bet Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson wouldn’t have been so reposed if they had the Internet! We might have ended up with kardadhian-esque selfies instead of Wuthering Heights!

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    • Bite your tongue! Lol! Then society might have going on the opposite direction and now we’d be reading wuthering heights instead of a book on selfies… Although you’re right! Maybe the rushing is from too many distractions that writing is limited so it has to be fast!

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    • I think Jane Austen would have been into the whole selfie thing. I can totally imagine her typing, “How despicably have I acted!” she cried; “I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my—” and then stop to take a selfie with her computer. 😀

      For some reason, I think Emily Dickinson wouldn’t have owned a computer, much less an iphone. I think if she had to upgrade from pen and paper, she would have chosen a typewriter. I don’t know. She just seemed like the sort, but I could be just misjudging her. 🙂

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  8. When I write short pieces, like blog posts, poems, or short stories, I sit down and write and let it go. When I write novels, I must organize. I write the crucial parts first. I believe in not editing until it’s done, whether it’s an entire short piece or a chapter.
    I think it’s like cooking. If I’m cooking a large meal, I think it’s better if I have mise en place and then go. If I’m making a sandwich, I just get things as I need them.
    Yes, I think this is my personality leaking in, but then, some of us are quirky. Okay, most of us are quirky. I don’t think anyone can tell you HOW to write. And doing what others do may not be best for you.

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    • So you write differently for different pieces? I find that really interesting. I mean it’s all writing, just the variations fascinate me. Also I’m an over editor I think. Is that a thing? After a chapter I go back and edit it, although this is probably because of my shitty typing skills.

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  9. I write as much as possible when it is forthcoming…and then when it dries up, I curse the writing gremlins but am always reassured that it will come back to me. So I’m a spewer lol and then I write more steadily as a story comes along.

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  10. Yeah, sometimes my personality matches my writing, as does my moods. If I’m feeling frazzled I’ll sometimes write faster, if I’m feeling sluggish and under the weather the thoughts are slow and I find it hard to get them out. And mostly my ideas come when it’s hardest to write them down, like when I’m driving or in the shower! So frustrating.

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  11. I know that feeling Lisa, yet with short poems it’s more a burst of words that I need to jot down asap. For you I have a suggestion that may calm your mind. Or ‘monkey’ mind. Mingyur Rinpoche talks about that on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GLjelIPg3ys. Check it out; it may enlighten you and help you be in control of your own busy mind 🙉

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