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Sometimes I find myself writing in a swirl. I start with one idea and then it reminds me of another one, but I was really trying to say this other thing, and so I double back, but actually I don’t like where that’s going, so I U-turn to another idea, and what was I even saying to begin with?
Below are a few tricks I find helpful when this happens.
1. Write the headlines
One go-to is to zoom out and write the headlines version of a piece. I’ll type “What am I trying to say?” at the top of my doc, or in a text message to myself if I’m on the go, followed by my main points—boom, boom, boom—in a list below.
Another way to think of this is the notecard version you’d write if you were delivering your writing as a speech.
I guess you could call it an outline, but in my head outline seems much more involved with bullets and sub-bullets all nested. Outline gives five-paragraph essay, and that sounds dreadful. This is just the main ideas.
For instance, I did this when I was all a-swirl on my last post. and it looked like this:
Don’t worry if my texts make no sense to you. They barely make sense to me anymore, but at the time they helped me distill my ideas down into something legible.
Once I have my headlines, I start to organize what I’ve drafted based on them. If something doesn’t fit, I put it at the bottom of my doc, usually under a divider. This is the purgatory area: sometimes things come back from it, but a lot of times they don’t.
Where new ideas and sentences are needed, I write them.
This works for fiction, too. With a story or novel chapter, my headlines might be something like this:
She felt lost.
She went on a trip.
The trip was not what she hoped.
She felt like an idiot for wasting her time and money to just feel lost on vacation.
Then she saw something, and it made her laugh at herself, and it was all worth it.
2. Duplicate the doc
I’m a huge fan of duplicating the document I’m drafting in and going to town on the new copy. I preserve the old draft for the same reason I create that purgatory section—just in case I want to go back to any of it. Again, I rarely do, but having the option makes me feel safe and secure to try all kinds of things in the new doc. This in turn frees me up to generate new, good ideas.
3. Step away
Some of the time, a lot of the time, I just have to give it time.
This may sound like a cop-out, but actually it can be incredibly hard. At least if you’re impatient like me. I want the solution NOW. But when I try to force clarity, I often only make matters more convoluted. Best to take a break and come back later with fresh eyes.
I try to remember that being lost in the swirl is just weather. As long as I’m checking in with the thing I’m working on frequently (daily, if possible), eventually the swirly clouds part and I see the sun.
I so appreciate this advice and that it extends beyond one’s writing life. And “Just weather could be a title to something —
what is he big fam abt tho