A reader emailed me last week with a problem about his writing process.
By the end of the email, he'd solved it himself.
What happened to him in that moment is something I think about a lot. Because it points to something most writers misunderstand about the writing process—something that, once you see it, changes how you write forever.
Here's the story.
Aleksi, a researcher in Finland, wanted to speed up his writing process. He writes:
I write my research papers so slow... I don't understand how others can read and write simultaneously.
The writing process involves both reading and writing, and Aleksi wanted them to work together.
But his writing process kept stalling. And so did his output.
First, he tried to first read and then write. He found this process "satisfying but not very productive."
Then he flipped it: write first, barely read at all. But that just left him feeling "starved," running dry of ideas mid-draft.
Neither process worked. And he couldn't figure out how other writers seemed to do both at once.
But then, while writing out his question to me, the answer arrived before he could send it.
Aleksi realized reading isn't a prerequisite to writing, like raw material. It's more like food.
You don't eat just because there's food in the kitchen. You eat when you're hungry. Food is a solution to the problem of hunger.
Similarly, reading is a solution to a problem in your writing process. When you're writing and you feel the pull toward more knowledge, that's your hunger signal. You go read. And when you're satisfied, you go back to writing and digest.
If reading is food, then writing is metabolism. It's the process through which you...
- break down new knowledge,
- integrate it with what you know,
- discard what doesn't serve you,
- and grow stronger.
Aleksi signed off with one word: Eureka!
It's a beautiful insight. And he found it by writing a question he thought he was asking me.
Here's what actually happened: