Deadline/Procrastination mode--First of all there is procrastination mode, which we all must fight against. You are in procrastination mode if, when you have a deadline, instead of picking up a pen, you'd rather: binge watch the latest episodes of your favorite TV series,  do chores around the house, run errands, eat snacks, cook a long elaborate dinner, go outside, call a friend, go out for drinks, dance around the house, fold laundry, wash your hair.  This is not to say that we should not do chores, live our lives, have fun, dance our way through life, etc. We have to nurture and take care of ourselves in order to live a healthy and creative life. But when we are jumping into other things besides writing because of the fear of sitting down to work, silence and the blank page, we are letting procrastination get the better of us. We all do this. Myself included. 

For many, our brand of procrastination is the obsessive checking of social media or watching of mindless television. If you're obsessed with social media/email/endless google searches that take you down the rabbit hole and generate more answers than you ever needed to know and you need to take a break or get a grip (ahem, speaking from experience), here's an idea: Shut it down. You can get an app that actually shuts down your computer from going online and lets you work.  There are two that I use. Freedom and Antisocial.

I heard some urban lore that they were initially developed for computer programmers who needed to focus on writing code, but a lot of writers I know also use them. They're relatively cheap ($10-15) and help you block yourself from checking email and/or social media for a chunk of time so you can actually get in the zone. ( http://anti-social.cc  and also https://macfreedom.com )

Creative Mode

This happens when you are actively writing new material. In this mode, you are engaging in creative alchemy, making something out of nothing. You don't have a plan and you are just making stuff up. When we're in flow--it's like play. This is often the kind of writing that has the most passion behind it. We feel the most alive while writing it. We are mad with words, the excitement of reading the words aloud for the first time is great. If you've taken a workshop with me, you know that we fiercely cultivate a space for creativity and the constant generation of new material. It's almost magical because we discover things about ourselves, we give birth to our characters, to our stories, to our poems, our scenes, and they emerge fully formed and ready for battle.  In class we learn to embrace process over product, open up the creative channel, keep it open and see what comes.

Editing Mode

One of my teaching mentors used to say--Writing is rewriting. 

After you develop a body of work, sometimes you might want to shape, weave and craft it into a larger piece.  I think editing old work and shaping it is the hardest part because you have to make difficult choices and cut things to fit the shape as it emerges and you have to go slow.  Sometimes you have to reshape scenes, descriptions or lines to fit into a particular narrative. There is no right answer, just a sensibility and a kind of "design thinking" that dictates what works and what doesn't and principles that you use/ precepts that you use to shape your work around. As your work begins to take shape and you make artistic choices, you also develop a rationale.  At the same time, you have to develop discernment, to know not to cut your best stuff. That's where workshopping comes in handy. Trying material out on a community of peers can help with this and can help you strengthen your editorial eye.  It helps you realize what your best stuff really is.

Strength / Flexibility

The weird part is that as writers, like martial artists, we have to be both strong and confident in our choices yet flexible and adaptable to change. We have to be receptive to the stories that want to be told and need to be told, but we also have to figure out the best way to tell them. We have to be open to process and stay in the moment through process, and shape the product. We have to be able to focus on the minute details, but we have to be able to see the big picture.  We have to love to tell stories, but we have to focus on the reader and her/his experience.

It's important to realize that there are many types of writing and thinking about writing. There are many hats that we wear as artists. There is the art of writing. There is that feeling of mad passion when you dash something across the page, like you are diving headlong into the waves of life.  There is that sluggish plodding along of editing, where it seems like it will take forever to get through a scene, to clean up what you have already written, or to synthesize the story in your mind with what's on the page. There is the moment when you feel like you come alive and your writing sings off the page when you are reading it aloud to others for the first time and that fresh first kiss impression of it all and the slow satisfaction and craftsmanship and taking pride in your work of editing.

At times it can all be overwhelming. But do not despair. A great workshop can guide you step by step through the process. Before you know it, you're half way there. In between generating new material, you can use the time to rest, or if you want, weave smaller pieces together to create something big.  Many of you reading this are toggling back and forth between both writing/editing mode. Both are important. Don't give up because for a writer, It never ends.