Tortoise and Hare

When our little group of writers meet to share ideas and practice our craft, we often use "prompt based" exercises to get the creativity moving.  A word, a phrase, a setting, or an object - or several of each - is placed on the table and the a timer is set running.  The pens and pencils set off in hot pursuit and, after fifteen or twenty minutes has passed, an end is reached.

An end, I say, because that's where we stop, even though the finish that each writer was aiming at, if indeed they knew for certain what their target was, might have needed many more minutes or hours to achieve.  After a brief examination of each work by the group, another prompt is chosen, and the race begins anew.  I tend to leave these sessions in an uplifted and enthusiastic mood.  I seem to be one of those people who finds it easier to begin a work with some costraints in place - such as theme, setting, and a time limit for completion. 

I also leave with a collection of short pieces that need further work - sometimes they merely need tidying up, but more often the ending has to be written, and the middle properly fleshed out.  Then, of course, the beginning will often need a bit of a re-write as well.  Occasionally, I find myself with a page or two that could turn into much more than a short story.

Some teachers of writing insist that this is the best way to write - pick up the pen and set out on the journey, never looking back until the destination is reached, and only then commence the task of perfecting the work.

Is it better to rush forward, spilling words across the paper until the conclusion has been attained, and then go back to begin the painstaking review and reconstruction of paragraphs and chapters - or to shape each word, phrase, sentence, and paragraph into a perfect form before moving onto the next?

Is that even possible if the writer does not yet know the ending?

For the writer, though God of the Universe that is flowing from the Authorial Pen, is not - cannot be- Omniscient until the final word is on the page, and the new universe has taken its full shape.  Only then can the true relevance and aptness of each word and phrase be known.

Others advise that, instead of reviewing and reworking, the author take the first draft and hurl it into the fire, before starting afresh and producing a new body of work from the ghost of the old. Finding the "best way" to write is a question that is always lurking in the background - whether I am at my desk or not.

I recently read Annie Dillard's "The Writing Life"  In it, she examines the alternatives, and gives reasons why each method is good, without selecting one above the others - which left me wondering if Professor Tolkien had been having a dig at teachers of writing when he had Frodo say "And it is also said, 'Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.'"

I will just have to keep wondering, I guess - and keep that pen scratching across the page while I do so.