Matthew Stadler's Personal Weblog

Many people ask me about the hard work of writing, just how I get it done. This week, I'll pull the veil back and show you how it works. My writing can really be broken down into two parts: The creative and the organizational. Most entries take shape from a jumble of concepts bouncing around inside my head. Then I will suddenly come across some kind of trigger that connects the disparate “bits,” and that becomes the foundation for the piece. For example, I might have a memory of a snippet of news story from CNN, a bit of a letter to the editor I was impressed with, an article I read while waiting at the doctor’s office, and in the middle of talking to my friend Chuck, “something” is said that makes the picture suddenly snap into focus. And then the race is on. The written article starts as a profoundly typo-ed list of ideas-- visualize me trying to type 400 words per minute, basically doing a brain dump onto the page. I must get every idea out of my head and into writing, before some critical detail slips away. This process rarely takes more than a couple of minutes or three; maybe a little longer for something really complex. This is how the meat of every piece transitions from “concept“ to “text.” At this point, the creative juices slow down a bit, and raw creativity takes the back seat to “organizing” the article. I find that my best writing is done to music, and I am fairly particular. Different ideas have different “soundtracks.” Now, I’m not saying that I can’t write without music-- just that the words flow more smoothly with an appropriate tune as a backdrop. As I type these words, Dirty Vegas’ first album keeps me company; upbeat and energetic, suitable accompaniment for a piece with a looming deadline. My writing music runs the range from New Age to Acid Rock. In most cases, I know where I am going to begin, and I know where-- and how-- I want the piece to conclude. The tricky part lies in sorting my brain dumped one-liner notes into some semblance of order that will make sense to someone else, and get me from point A to point B. Whereas I’ve been known to just sit down and type out a 3000-word article from beginning to end-- with barely a word ever revised-- that’s a rarity. Generally, the first attempt is pretty rough. I get on the way by taking each “rough idea” and turning it into anywhere from a few sentences to a few paragraphs. When that’s done, I play around with the order of the paragraphs, trying to find a structure that “flows.” During this stage, some of the original ideas get thrown out. They may have sounded great while I was brainstorming with myself, but on reflection turn out to add nothing worthwhile to the piece. And while I lose a bit now and then, I also frequently get new ideas while piecing he article together-- often in the middle of the 14th attempt to get paragraphs eight and nine to make sense together. Sometimes I really get bogged down, and no matter what I do, the writing comes out sounding “tired.” At that point I just have to walk away, deadlines notwithstanding. When I explain this to friends or colleagues, they usually nod and say things like “Yeah, that makes sense. You go away and think about it.” Actually, I don’t. I go away and try to think about something completely different, like whether I need to buy coffee at the grocery, or whether the mail has come. I know myself and my writing habits well enough to realize that when I feel stuck, it’s generally because I am “trying too hard.” The break serves to “clean my slate” so I can sit back down at the keyboard with a somewhat refreshed mind. Sometimes I’ll change the music, as well-- a change of “audio atmosphere” can help, a lot. Once I have the article “about finished,” I read it out loud to myself. I am not sure exactly why this works as well as it does, but it’s a trick I was taught while I worked as a free-lance copywriter for a radio station, and it makes two things happen. Awkward phrasing becomes very obvious when read out loud, allowing me to “polish” poor passages. I also catch almost all typos during the read-through. Yes, I’ve got spell check, but it doesn’t know the difference between “their” and “there” and “they’re.” When you read out loud, you actually LOOK at every word. It’s a handy tool. Try it sometime. At that point, I am generally ready for publication. If I have the luxury of time, I may let a piece “age” till the following day, to allow me to read it again and see if I still think it’s worthy. I don’t do this very often, though, as I find that most writing loses its edge if you “over polish” it. And that, in a nutshell, is how it works.