Lock It In The Vault!

The past two blog columns have looked at the creative writing process from the standpoint of worship songwriting and creative nonfiction. Although every kind of writing has it's own uniqueness and set of "rules," good writing is good writing, and many tricks of the trade apply to any form. Today we get what will perhaps be the most helpful advice yet for ALL writers, and it comes from a playwright.

Jeffrey Hatcher, a great playwright himself, wrote a book called "The Art & Craft Of Playwriting." I highly recommend it for anyone who'd like to write for the stage. In the appendix, he interviewed three outstanding contemporary playwrights, the first of which was Lee Blessing, author of such great works as "A Walk In The Woods," "Fortinbras," and "Cobb." Here, Blessing talks about the one thing a writer can do to help his thoughts actually make it onto the page:

Hatcher: Now you're working on something new, but you don't want to talk about it because ...

Blessing: Because it would be bad for me to talk about it.

Hatcher: Why do you think it's bad?

Blessing: It tends to diminish one's energy for actually writing the piece. Every writer wants to get out of writing to begin with. That goes without saying. When you're a writer your highest priority is how to keep from writing. And so you have to guard against too many things that make it too easy not to write. One of the things that I think makes it easy not to write is to be able to go down to the coffeehouse and sit with your friends and tell them all about this great new idea you have. Once you've expressed it, you sort of have the entire pleasure of getting the feedback from the original conception, and it's very hard to bank up sufficient energy then to go to all the trouble of writing it. Writing takes a long time. It's slow going, and you need to keep the carrot out in front of you a little bit. I want to keep that carrot.

So there you have it. Got an idea for a song, a book, a short film? Don't get on your blog, or go down to Sunergos Coffee or whatever the local hangout is, and tell your buddies about it. I used to do this all the time. An idea, to a writer, is like an itch. When you tell people about it, you're scratching that itch. Not good. Let it itch. Let it itch so bad that you have to get some relief, and then get that relief in the productive way -- by WRITING!

Of course if you're collaborating with someone, that's different. The only other exception I make is that sometimes I'll share the germ of an idea with my editor friend if the idea is fuzzy in my mind. That way I can get some help fine-tuning my thoughts, focusing on the direction my idea should take. Other than that, as Elaine from Seinfeld would say, I "lock it in the vault" and don't mention it to anyone until I at least have a rough draft on paper.

Go and do the same.