The Process: More Important Than The Prize
Filed Under (Acceptance, Writing) by Estee on 08-03-2010
In part, this blog was to discuss the process of writing a book and of writing itself. Many people like to think that the end result is easy. Most writers know this is not so. While I’m not a new writer, I’ve not yet written a book.
Much like how we view people and autism — that there is a goal that must be reached — that only one end result is desirable or feasible — we forget the journey and the process as the greatest creation of all. When all is said and done and the product is finished perhaps a few people will read our work, perhaps fewer will remember it (or as Elizabeth Gilbert and J.K. Rowling will attest — sometimes there is “freakish” success). But that does not make the doing, the making, any less significant. An act of creation is no waste of time. It pains me sometimes when I watch a culture so invested in the end result that we continue to churn out less creators and more factory-line producers in business administrators and lawyers (but let us not forget that there are wonderful creators in these professions as well). I have a real issue with “professionals” being churned out of universities, as I find that those without such degrees can be equally, if not more competent, in business. I believe university is an opportunity to receive the Universal Education – not a place to learn a trade. It’s not that I do not appreciate trades and craftsmanship, for I have great respect for it and also believe we undervalue true craftsmanship. I believe learning a craft is equally as important as learning philosophy, literature, art, and the sciences. My real point is, life is more than the products we produce. It is the intricacies, decisions, confusions and the work in between that is often more meaningful and interesting to us in the end. The “wax on, wax off” of the Karate Kid was more important than the rush to learn Karate. If the process of our lives wasn’t important, we wouldn’t be writing and producing biographies of people and their private lives — we just wouldn’t be that interested in them. We always need and want to know the story behind the creator.
I like to think of writing a book or a blog as a process as important as writing the Book of Life. As I went to a funeral last week, the Rabbi concluded that the “book of [the person's] life had now ended.” Our lives are complex narratives. We are reluctant to put the book down. When reading, we have been so invested in the journey. If this is not testament to how important a process is, I don’t know what is.
It was listening to a number of authors last week talking about process that I realized we are not a culture that appreciates it very much while it’s underway. We have our eyes on the prize. One author even stated that there is no such thing as a failure in writing. We must have many of them. In this sense, there is no such thing as a failure.
I’m still writing and doing a lot of research now that the bones of what I want to write seems to be constructed. The research is so much a part of my journey that I can see how some writers may not want to stop. Yet certain chapters have to be written. Some have to end. There is always something new to write about. There will be an ending to mine soon. But until someone reads the last sentence in my own Book of Life, I’m going to try and continue to relish the process.
I hope it need not be mentioned that this post is a metaphor for all of life, and for our autistic children with whom we place so much stake on performance and end results. It seems a bit of a let-down to have to spell it out.
ESTÉE KLAR
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA
Writer/Curator/Founder of The Autism Acceptance Project. Lecturer on autism & the media, and parenting. Graduate student Critical Disability Studies, York University. I like to write about our journey, musings, attitudes towards autism.
You wrapped that all up very nicely in your last sentence.. Awesome :)
“Many people like to think that the end result is easy.”
Really? I didn’t know that. I would say those who think getting the end product (a book) is easy have not tried to create a book.
The process, as you said, is very important. Having written a book is said to “prove” you’re an expert at something. But, it is in writing the book that you become the expert or not. If you put the time and effort into the process, and get from the process all you can, you become the expert you will be as you write the book. The expertise is not only in what’s included, but what’s left out and leaving it own knowledgeably and not in ignorance. The expertise is in discovering what you have to say, versus what you thought you had to say when you started. It’s about learning and growing and, then, when that’s all over, ending up with something that offers your readers some small part of that learning and growth–but only part of it.
I stare up at my wall where I have the outline for a book pinned. I have created pockets for my notes and am slowly filling those pockets. All I knew and thought I knew was just the beginning. It’s in filling those pockets that my book-to-be gains value. It will be in distilling those pockets that my readers learn and grow. And, when I’m done, I will have earned my expertise–not from having written a book, but from writing it.
That’s the word — distilling. I like also your method you described in creating the pockets.
It took much trial and error to find a way to keep my notes organized, but this method works well for me. It’s visual, but doesn’t take as much space as it would if it were linear.
There’s also a great deal of intrinsic satisfaction in a bulging pocket that requires a few extra pins to keep it up!