The Many Stages of Writing

Hey, remember when I wrote a blog post about the stages of writing and forgot to include the part where you accidentally delete said post and, ironically, have to re-write it? Le sigh.

Since working on this book I’ve been becoming more in tune with what the stages of writing look like. You’d think it would be as simple as thinking of something to write, sitting down, and putting words to paper/screen. Right? Hahaha. Nope. There are way more important steps involved in the process. (Such as eating snacks. Without snacks the whole system breaks down.)

The process is probably a bit different for everyone depending on your personality, creativity, and whether or not you’ve written a book before. This is what my very refined writing process looks like:

1. Come up with idea.
2. Wrack brain for more ideas, because the first idea sucked.
3. Stick with the first idea.
4. Start writing an outline.
5. Discard outline because you know you won’t stick to it anyway.
6. Write.
7. Get excited over how well it’s going. Tell everyone on Twitter.
8. Take a coffee/snack break.
9. Write some more.
10. Come up with ideas for a new scene or chapter. Get overwhelmed because now you don’t know which one to work on first.
11. Wake up next morning with writer’s block.
12. Doubt everything. Not just your story, but your entire life.
13. Take a coffee/snack break.
14. Write.
15. Bang head on keyboard in frustration and stare off into the void.
16. Doubt that you’ll ever finish your book. Who said you knew how to write anyway?
17. Write some more.
18. Go to the store for more snacks.

Do you think really successful authors, like Stephen King, eat lots of snacks while writing?