Wordspills are Magic

This autumn I unlocked a technique for freeing words to flood the page – two to three thousand words each writing session. Not perfect words, but not junk words either. I call them Wordspills.

They're perfect when I'm facing a blank page with some idea of what I want to put on that page, but little confidence about the details or the flow or a multitude of other nuances. What I most need is to capture raw material I can shape later. The intention to wordspill enables me to get out of my own way.

The Struggle

I laugh at that quip, but I also recognize its truth. The more intensely I care about what appears on the page, the harder it is to accumulate words there.

My mind, sensing that I care, leaps to assist: "You need speedy access to everything you know that's relevant here. Let me pull that from storage for you!"

There's a lot to pull. And my helpful, well-intentioned mind pulls it ALL to the front of my awareness.

Simultaneously.

Along with "helpful" judgemental commentary.

This mechanism is probably useful for responding to the abrupt appearance of a saber-toothed tiger. When I'm one and a half words into a sentence, it tends to derail laying down the thought.

The Response

Writers collect tricks for getting around this misplaced helpfulness of our minds. Some are mechanical, some are environmental, and some are mental.

Mechanical tricks are things like: Write for ten minutes without pausing, even if you repeat the same word a ridiculous number of times in a row. Race a friend or the clock to a hundred words. Maximize the number of words you write in three minutes.

Environmental tricks are things like: Light a candle. Reserve specific music to listen to only while writing. Go to a cafe to write.

The mental tricks mostly cluster around two bits of advice:

1. Don't listen to judgemental critiques early in the process – not even your own.
2. Remember that the perfect words don't need to be the first words to land on the page.

It's that common theme of permission, from caring experienced writers to newer writers – and beleaguered colleagues – to just let go and see what comes out on the page, without judging it or worrying about how close or how far it is from what we're intending to say.

I know this advice. I've given this advice to others.

Yet all of this had stopped being enough to routinely let me draft new material.

The Solution

For me, the solution came in pieces.

One of my strategies for being stuck is to consume related information. In this case, reviewing writing advice and seeking out more chatter by and for writers.

A key piece came from VE Schwab[2], who described a trick for overcoming the paralysis of perfection by taking notes about a scene as a way of getting into it. Not writing anything yet, just scribbling an outline of the scene.

Then Leigh Bardugo gave an amazing TED Talk[3] about the necessity of embracing discomfort. She reminded me of something I knew: Comparing my rough drafts to finished work I admire makes me hyperaware of all my flaws. But she also named this as Discomfort and talked at length about the power of pursuing Discomfort – not just tolerating it but diving into it to see where it leads. Her talk is about a much higher level of artistic craft, but it helped me to engage at this low level with the idea of just enduring through the messiness, letting all the flaws persist for a while.

My mind cross-linked that to another talk Leigh Bardugo gave recently, in which she described how, all through her first draft, one of her sassy characters was "just a really nice girl, trying to do the right thing"[4]. Now, the fact is that Nina locked in as her sassy self during the second draft, but between the time I first heard this and when I finally found my exact reference point again, my mind misremembered that detail. So for several weeks I was saying to myself: If an amazing writer like Leigh Bardugo can have a character that doesn't take proper shape until draft four or five, then I'm allowed to have that problem, too! It was wonderfully liberating! But Leigh Bardugo is much further along in her writing career than I am in mine, so it's no surprise that she resolved Nina's character problem in only the second draft. However, I'm still carrying forward that sense of freedom to have characters (and other key aspects) that feel off while I'm drafting. Leaning into that discomfort, not letting it stop me.

And then Sabaa Tahir shared a couple of Instagram posts about "dumb drafts"[5]. Including an anecdote about having talking cats in the earliest drafts of An Ember in the Ashes. Sabaa Tahir's brand is exquisitely beautiful, heartbreaking woe – talking cats don't fit! But they served a drafting purpose, and when she could do something better for the story, she did. "I want you to know I do dumb things too," she said. "Don't let your mistakes stop you from keeping going." Another encouragement to carry discomfort forward until I know the story better and can replace those awkward parts with something more deeply informed.

All those pieces combined and I sat down, not to Write, but just to capture some notes. Silly ideas and all. No rules.

And the words spilled forth. Two to three thousand at a time. Repeatedly.

What does a wordspill session look like? Whatever it needs to.

• Frequently it's apparently prose: a scene being described and told in storytelling mode, with dialogue as it appears or notes about what dialogue should reveal even though I don't have the words for it yet.
• Sometimes it's "I want this to happen" and "I intend this" statements.
• Or notes about what I suddenly realize I need to learn, via research or brainstorming or experimentation.
• Or "oops, this isn't going to work as I'd thought" and analysis about why not.
• Most valuably, the discovery of insights fed from my subconscious, however raw and awkward they may be.
• Verb tenses shift, sometimes mid-sentence.
• Sentences abruptly cut off, restart, jump elsewhere.
• POV characters may abruptly swap.

None of that is acceptable for presenting to others, but in a Wordspill Session, none of those things matter. The essential work – getting onto the page what is known or being discovered while producing words – is getting done.

And that's all I need to move forward.

References

[1] See https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/04/17/writer/ for research into the origins of this Thomas Mann quote and several variations.

[2] See the June 2024 edition of The Visible Life of V.E. Schwab newsletter, Craft Table section, Q&A #4. Her whole newsletter archive is available via VE Schwab's Linktree: https://linktr.ee/veschwab.

[3] Leigh Bardugo's TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCtbFZtoQ88 "The Art of Discomfort".

[4] Leigh Bardugo's talked frequently about when Nina locked in for her, but I first heard it in a talk she gave for the Library Speakers Consortium. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhwMtZ6hJpQ "10 Years of Daring Heists and Lovable Outcasts in YA Fantasy with Leigh Bardugo" (at about 35:24).

[5] Sabaa Tahir on Dumb Drafts: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNybiCQXIem/ and more details on the misplaced talking cats in Ember of the Ashes: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DN0yFiWWmaU/.