Reflection on My Writing Process: Reset is a Valid Option
My most radical decision while working on my book Communication Flows was to start writing it again midway through.
This week, I released the last chapter of Part 02 of Communication Flows, the book I’m writing and publishing incrementally. I wanted to use this opportunity to reflect on my writing process, some decisions I’ve made, and lessons that I hope you will find helpful. And what better decision is there to reflect upon than the one to start from scratch?
I had written over 50,000 words when I decided something didn’t work, or at least didn’t work as well as it could. The problem wasn’t with my thesis, the ideas I wanted to share, or even the quality of my writing. Every paragraph in my manuscript was more than reasonable, and some were really good. But as a whole, something didn’t feel right.
My writing process includes deep thinking about the design of the text. Every chapter I wrote in that first draft was preceded by design work, where I collected ideas and raw material, decided what I wanted to say, and thought about the most effective arrangement of these ideas. I mostly followed the design, but the result was not good enough. I hadn’t realized it for months, but halfway through, I had a revelation. The trigger for this insight was a great book I’ve read (or, more accurately, listened to): The Creative Act by Rick Rubin.
The Creative Act is an excellent book. I loved Rubin’s ideas about creativity and how he delivered them. But what resonated with me even more was how the book is structured. Each chapter is short and focuses on a single idea. Together, they create a comprehensive whole, yet individually, they are quick to read, almost like brief meditations.
As I read this book, I knew my text could benefit from a similar structure. This structure allows readers to quickly familiarize themselves with an idea while slowing down to allow it to sink in. This pace and rhythm were perfect for the ideas I’ve been trying to capture.
So, I started to edit, restructure, and write my book again, limiting each chapter to no more than 2000 words (and often much less). The goal was not to write a shorter book but to structure the text so the reader could contemplate my ideas in small bites.
The lesson is not that this structure is better than others or that structure is an important aspect of the content (which, of course, it is). The lesson is that we sometimes need to take a step backward to move forward. The new structure proved to have more benefits than I initially thought, and the only way to discover them was to see my first draft for what it was: just a first draft.
We often become so attached to our work that the thought of starting over feels impossible. Obviously, we need to deliver at some point; I am not advocating perfectionism. At the same time, we must be open to the possibility and opportunity of starting over. In many cases, that’s the way to produce our best work.
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