Disconnecting Creativity from Productivity

So often, writers are told things like “you have to write every day,” or “if you’re rejected, push though the pain and write the next thing,” or “you’ll eventually get there if you just keep going.” All of these bits of advice are basically the same, with one overarching theme: productivity is king.

Out of all the possible creative pursuits, writing feels like the one where an overwhelming pressure to create is put on the creatives. A quick scroll through writing twitter makes this clear, and a jaunt over to r/selfpublish on reddit reveals more than a few tip threads where releasing one book after another while building your social media presence everywhere at once is the proper way to succeed.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fall into the fervor of productivity, too. It’s an easy trap to fall into when you’re trying to listen to all the “right people” and do things “the right way”. For a very long time (read: years), my writing method was focused more on quantity than quality. The drift toward productivity was very slow, like the story about boiling a frog. I wasn’t thrown into the hot water; I started out in the cold, on my own, then was slowly brought into the fold.

The culmination of this mindset was a piece-of-shit novel that I wrote at the end of 2021. I managed to produce 150,000 words in about 2.5 months, putting my daily wordcount very close to 3,000. I was proud of my accomplishment, but for all the wrong reasons. Instead of gushing over the quality of the novel, or the complexity of the narrative, or the depth of the characters, or the richness of the world, I was obsessed with the speed with which I was able to churn out a “complete” manuscript. And, honestly, that did me no favors when I passed it off to critique readers.

But things changed when The Ones Inside was accepted to the 2022 Write Mentor Summer Mentoring Program. I’d nearly given up on the novel after working on it for years. I’d written it, rewritten it, and done a third deep pass on the manuscript before sending out about twenty queries. Every one was a rejection. I’d considered setting the manuscript aside, but I decided to submit it for the mentorship on a whim. And I was blown away when someone read the first chapter and loved it so much they wanted to work with me.

Long story short, I learned a lot this summer, but the most important takeaway was that my writing has merit. And that there’s no harm in working on something until it’s better. That time isn’t wasted.

That’s the crux of the productivity trap that’s forced on writers. We’re told to write, revise, beta, and query as quickly as possible. If the book isn’t picked up, there’s either something wrong with the writing, the story, the characters, the market, etc. And it’s just better to write something brand new to improve instead of workshopping the problems and learning from your own mistakes. Set it aside. Write something new. Toss it out there. Rinse. Repeat.

Of course, some of this is hyperbole. Not everyone says that, but it’s enough of a thing that plenty of writers fall into the trap. Many new writers do. I did.

Recently, there has been a growing focus in the twitter writing community on mental health. Even though writers are doing what they love, there’s a chance that doing it too much could be detrimental to both their craft and their well being. I’m a poster boy for this, falling so far down the rabbit hole of “success” that I focused on quantity instead of quality. If it weren’t for the summer mentorship program, I would have probably already rushed through another shitty manuscript. And I’d likely be considering whether writing was actually for me.

Yeah…I really was right on the edge of quitting.

So, what’s the point?

As a results-oriented person, it’s very easy for me to keep my eyes on the prize: publishing. But in doing so, it’s also just as easy to lose sight of the point of writing. I’ve heard dozens of people say it time and time again – while also willfully ignoring it – but writing a novel isn’t about getting published. Not really. Sure, that can be a desired outcome, but the real reason we write is to craft stories that make readers stay up until 3 in the morning. We want readers’ chests to swell in triumph. We want readers to ugly cry. We want…all the emotions and more! I’d lost sight of that.

Now, I’m writing a new book, but I’m doing so without an eye for publishing. I’m writing this book because it’s a story that I want to tell. I’m loving building the world. I’m loving fleshing out the characters. I’m loving letting them own the scenes and push the novel in interesting directions I didn’t plan for it to go. For the first time in years writing feels like it did when I first started: natural, invigorating, and exciting. By simply refusing to care about productivity, I’m able to focus more on creativity. And, best of all, I don’t get a twinge in my chest every time I think about querying.

That’s not the point.

Not anymore.

And never again…