The Long Form Writer's Running Track
Good writing, as every long-form writer knows, springs into being during the editing and rewriting process.1 The first draft is there to be there. It's not supposed to be anything more than the starting line for what, in most cases, is going to be quite a long race with quite a few laps to endure.
And at least in my case, "enduring" is the right word, because I like collecting ideas and inspirations and quotes that make for a nice messy, expectationless first draft. For a notebook enthusiast like me, that part comes easy. The hard part is polishing that draft, running lap after lap on the writer's running track: One for general structure and the most obvious typos, one to expand on several points and to add footnotes, one for examples and metaphors, one for cutting and pruning, another one for structure, one for adding links and pictures, and on and on.2
Once I have crossed my starting line a few times, the initial spark of inspiration that prompted me to start writing that particular text has mostly faded. What remains at that point is my wish to actually produce good writing. So I sigh in resignation, gather my strength and start the next lap.
That is: Until a new question or inner conflict hits me with the irresistable urge to write about that instead. Every writer trying to circle in on a complex topic via long-form pieces of writing might know this problem: The next really interesting topic or need-to-write-about question is right around the corner, and its intrusion into the writer's mind is especially easy if he is exhausted from the several laps of rewriting already run around the current draft.
I'm at this point right now: I'm in the process of finishing a long and hopefully timeless essay3 about a topic that is quite dear to my heart. But just this morning, another really interesting and pressing question — one with obvious complexity, real-life consequences and immediate relevance to my own behaviour — hit me with a force that only other writers might recognize: The one that makes you stop what you're doing and retreat into thought land with a thousand-yard stare on your face, only to start frantically looking for something to capture that spark of inspiration with before it vanishes like so many before, although you know that particular thought is not going anywhere. It has left a dent in you identity, and it demands your attention.
Now what do you do? Press pause on the current writing race you're running, take a deep breath, make a coffee and start a new race? Or shelve that new idea on the pages of a notebook or in a computer file, only to hope that it will have the same effect on you once you retrieve it again? Or maybe bang out that first draft, go as far as you can with the initial idea, only to then return to the race you were about to finish?
Lucky for us perennially inspired writers, those two last options have the benefit of turning an exhausted and slightly bored endurance runner into the Usain Bolt of rewriting: With a pressing question or promising idea waiting to be explored, the inner critic's perfectionism suddenly ceases to be an obstacle. We take that last few strides, hit "publish", take a breather — and then we start again at the same line that we just crossed.
Footnotes
I have read and listened to accounts of hundreds of writers at this point, and I can faintly remember one of them saying he does almost no editing. All other writers I know of share this writing-is-rewriting sentiment.↩
Not neccessarily in that order.↩
I hesitate to use this term for my writing, as I am currently deep-diving into the intricacies of that genre and have quickly developed a huge sense of respect for its literary depth. Here, I only mean "explorative writing".↩