Finding Your Writing Practice Again After Publishing

Writer Maggie Smith says her writing process is one of discovery. “If I sat down and thought I knew where a piece of writing was going, where it would end, what it was going to be ‘about,’ what the form might be, how long it might be, where the turn might happen, what imagery might be useful; if I knew any of those things at the outset, I don't even know what the point would be. The writing for me is the process of discovery. That's the whole point. So I enter my writing with questions and just see where they go.” (The full interview between Jane Ratcliffe, in her wonderful Substack, “Beyond,” and Smith is here.)

Discovery makes sense to me. I want to “not know,” as I travel home this week from a glorious celebration in Minneapolis at my beloved Loft Literary Center. So many friends and fellow writers came out to help me announce my book to the world. We had live jazz, great food and drink, and lively, writerly conversations. I felt full up when I left, glowing with how beautifully readers received the work I’d done for the past ten years.

Driving through the late fall landscape of the Midwest gives me time to feel gratitude for the team that’s helped me get here. It takes a small country to birth a book these days. The author is but one spoke of the wheel.

As the miles roll by, the feeling of fullness evaporates, and I’m left with what’s ahead: getting home, resuming my life, the holidays coming, the beginning of winter in New England. The next book (yes, I have another novel all ready to go, which my agent says is even better than the one I just released).

But much of me craves something else: that empty space that Smith talks about where optimal discovery happens. I’ve missed it in the crowd that’s accompanied me on this wonderful journey since April. I’ve been too conscious of the readers out there and close by, to find my creative isolation, that certain mood that lets me commune with a place, a plot, my characters. With so many people watching, I find it hard to make as many mistakes as I need to. I want to stop writing for a result or an audience and just explore.

You cultivate your readers, you’re happy for them, you celebrate with them—they are your writing community, friends and family who have supported all your large and small efforts to get your book out into readers’ hands. We couldn’t do this without them. We do write for them, but I find it hard to write with them.

My friend Lori had a plaque in her kitchen: “It’s been lovely, but I have to scream now.” (In other words, I love people AND I love to be alone.)

There’s also a post-partum feeling about post-launch. Everyone moves on with their lives and you need to as well. But how? How do you get back your love of isolation, the sense of discovery born in a quiet interior space, so necessary for the next book? What’s your best technique for this?

Even when my son was a teenager, even with writing clients and students to respond to, I worked out ways to be alone enough to write well. First, it was about timing: I got up earlier, before everyone else. I disciplined myself to not check my phone, to settle in with tea and laptop, to dive in to whatever chapter or scene lay unfinished from the day before. To really use that time and space.

Early mornings worked well—I could carry that dreaminess from the night, use it as a kind of prompt. Dreams even brought forth ideas for my story.

Another way I managed this was in distance. I took myself out of the house to a coffeeshop or on a long walk where I could ruminate in privacy.

I also used certain techniques, like stopping my work in the middle of a sentence—a practice mentioned in Stephen King’s iconic book On Writing. It creates a vacuum for the next writing session to fill, an easy way out of writer’s block, as I’ve talked about before in these newsletters.

But some mornings, the crowd was there. Not my readers yet—the project was too early in its development for that particular presence. Instead, my writing times were burdened with life worries: my son’s upset at school, a family illness, money troubles, my own aging. When it was hard to find any interior spaciousness, I did one of two things. Either I started with free writing, using one of those prompts, writing terrible stuff. Or I journaled the three “morning pages” of The Artist’s Way plan.

Occasionally, I read a poem—a great note about this from Jay Deshpande in Lit Hub if you haven’t tried this trick. Deshpande writes, “It is reading a poem that makes it possible to enter the mindset in which more poetry can happen.” Either the journaling, the free write, or the poem would bring in the images and words needed to wake up my sluggish creativity.

But now, I’d just left the most fun, most exciting dinner party, with the best food and conversation. The loveliest guests. Everything sparkled so brightly that my regular life felt as dull as the brown flat landscape we traveled.

How could I slow myself down again, shed the high? Allow the joy of quiet to come back in?

A few years ago, after my current novel was in my agent’s hands, I went through a huge shift inside. I’d completed a manuscript that had been my constant worry and constant companion for almost a decade. It was exciting to release it but incredibly scary. Not just because I wasn’t sure of my agent’s response but because I missed it. Like sending your kid off to kindergarten, there’s a moment of: What do I do with myself while he is at school?

Of course, as a parent there’s no trouble answering that. But still, the sense of bewilderment and slight anxiety felt similar. That’s when I developed this four-part writing exercise.

I’ve used it for years in all areas of my life. Any practice that needs deepening benefits from it. You can change up the steps, do them differently as it suits you, but each allows you to examine where there are weaknesses and strengths in your writing practice. I share both the positive and negative sides of each step, where I found myself flowing through and gaining a lot, and where I stumbled and realized so much needed shoring up.

Step 1: Prepare

This step is basic but we often overlook it. What do you need, in order to write? Do you have the right supplies, is your laptop charged, does your printer work? Do you have enough privacy, time, and space? Do you make writing a priority in your life?

This first step is an inventory of what’s present and what’s missing.

So many writers actually don’t have such writing basics in place. Or maybe they have some things in place—a decent computer, the right pen and pad—but other elements are just limping along. Not enough privacy or time to really commit to writing. No wonder they have a hard time getting started.

Sure, you can write between everything else, grab fifteen minutes in your car while waiting for the after-school pickup. Sure, you can try to write at night while your spouse watches Netflix. But wouldn’t your writing practice be more of a certainty if you actually gave yourself permission to make it a priority?

What would it take to give yourself permission to write instead of [fill in the blank]? Are you putting your creative time at the bottom of the duty list?

Unless we change this, we may never get past this first step.

Part of the process is negotiating: with family, roommate, kids and pets, boss, friends, and elderly parents who might inadvertently (or on purpose) interrupt your writing time. One of my students was astonished at how precisely her mother would call just when she got a bite of free time and sat down to work on her book.

Some writers enter their writing time in a calendar as “appointment with the Muse” or “appointment with self” so it’s sacrosanct.

What do you need to do, to make sure this first step happens?

Step 2: Enter

Every writer faces the blank page when they start a writing session. It can freeze you. Or you can have a ritual, a routine, on how you enter so you avoid the freeze.

Anne Lamott is famous for her 2-inch picture frame, empty, which sat on her desk. She told herself she only had to write enough words to fill it. Of course, she wrote more but that was the lubricant that got her started.

Other writers read their writing from the day before (I find this works for me).

Stephen King uses that technique I’ve mentioned of stopping each writing session in the middle of a sentence, leaving a sort of vacuum. I’ve tried this and the mind can’t bear it—I work on finishing that sentence all night and cannot wait to get back to the desk the next day.

Some writers light a candle, put on a playlist, wear certain clothes (leggings and a loose top, my workout clothes, work for me) to signal the creative self that it’s time to write.

Some days I don’t need anything—I am happy to just begin. But when I feel frozen or stuck, I use that list of prompts kept nearby. Free writing for even ten minutes starts the creative engine.

What’s your way to begin? If you feel stuck, what’s one thing you do to get over the freeze of the blank page?

Step 3: Deepen

Losing yourself in your writing is a total joy—at least for me. This third step is only a problem if I have a life, and I have to get back to it. Then, my fear that I’ll be irresponsible to making dinner, picking up my kid, texting a traumatized friend, or a thousand other markers to my every day, keeps me on the surface, creatively. I become afraid of surrendering to risk. I can’t let myself forget myself, to deepen into the writing.

Timers help. I set my phone alarm to sound about five minutes before I need to end the writing session. Those five minutes allow me to become a normal person again, to remember my real life instead of my story.

If you find it impossible to release your attention from the daily demands, if your writing is frustratingly stuck on those surface matters, perhaps you need to arrange a longer “away” time. Some of us, myself included, can only relax far from home. I use coffeeshop visits for this; even though they are noisy places, there’s a real sense of being away. I book myself for two-hour stretches once a week, tell no one where I am, silence my phone, and write. Residencies and retreats are another way.

I find women often need this more than men, to make a broad generalization. We women carry so much in our minds and hearts, as trained multi-taskers, it’s hard to get away entirely unless we are physically gone.

The other element of this step is surrender. Are you able to surrender to your story? Not know where you are going with it, and be OK with that? This isn’t dependent on external demands but the internal fears of letting go of control.

What stands in your way of deepening into your writing?

Step 4: Serve

This final step is about taking the writing into the world. Basically, you are serving the writing’s true purpose—to find its readers. When it’s time, when you’ve done all you can without other eyes on the work, you decide who will see it.

Feedback groups, writing groups, writing partners, your agent, the editor and publisher, all these preliminary readers help you get your creative work ready to do its service in the larger world. It’s completely different than the actual writing process, but I find it completes the circle of creative expression. Timing is everything, though. When it’s been through those first readers, when you’ve done all you can and are pleased, then find a way to send it out.

I’ve talked these past weeks about the publishing process, the outreach, the search for readers. It can be simpler than that, though. Consider one of the new ways to publish, such as starting a Substack and serializing your work. Or posting it on a blog you create elsewhere. Or sharing it with friends and family as a holiday gift this year.

What options are open to you, to allow your writing to fulfill its service mission in the world?

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Try the four steps above. Or try the first one or two. The goal is reacquaint yourself with the essence of writing practice, to be able to stay within your own creativity when your creative world feels like it’s no longer your own.

Explore where you get stuck, which step is easiest, which is hardest. It may surprise you. Then take actions to bring more attention to what’s missing.