Subscribers, truthfully, helped me find my way.

One thing I’ve learned about writing over the years is to trust my gut.

I’ve written a lot. A lot. A typical issue of BAN is about a thousand words, and I put 156 of them per year. That’s two science books worth of words! And that doesn’t include my Scientific American articles (55,000+ more words a year), or side gigs I get, or the odd book or two. Back in the day I actually wrote even more, when I had a daily blog. I’ve been doing this for decades now (holy crap, how did THAT happen?) so I’ve written millions of words.

Point is, I’ve built up a lot of internalized methods to writing. I can generally tell when I’m going to have a good writing day, or when the muse is woefully silent. It’s not talent so much as experience: I’ve learned what works and what doesn’t for me, so I have a feel for it now.

So today (as I write this) I’ve been working on a SciAm article, and to be honest it wasn’t happening. The topic is one I really like, and I have lots of journal papers and other sources with fun info to relay, too. Yet, for some reason, it wasn’t working. The words felt stodgy, and it was a slog trying to get anything written.

I wondered at first if it were the weather bringing me down; it’s dull and gloomy outside today, and I am sometimes strongly affected by that sort of thing. But that didn’t actually feel right. 

So I did something that sometimes helps: I walked away, sat in a comfy chair, put my feet up, closed my eyes, and let my mind drift for a few minutes.

And I swear, like a flash of light in the darkness, I saw the problem. Well, it’s not so much that as it was I free associated a bit and came up with a couple of lines that I liked. From there a couple more popped into my head, then a few more.

And that’s when I realized the opening paragraphs to my article were all wrong. They led the narrative in the wrong direction, and I had to wrestle it back in the subsequent paragraphs, which was too much work for me and assuredly would be for the reader too. 

The new stuff I just thought of made a much better opening; fun, bright, tied to current events, and right along a nice logical flow that led to the main topic. Even better, the opening paragraphs I yanked could be reused farther down, with some judicious snips.

Boom. It worked. As soon as I wrote the new stuff down and moved the old words to a different part of the article, it flowed way better. And suddenly it became much easier to write the rest. The mental stuffiness was cleared.

My point — and it’s one I’ve made before under somewhat different circumstances, but is important enough to bear repeating — is that if I were to somehow metamorphose this story into advice, it’s that you need to find what works for you.

I have things I do when I get stuck to help me get unstuck (which can be as unceremonious as thinking “well, to hell with this today” and to go outside or watch a movie), or to help move things along, or to come up with ideas in the first place. Those things may not work for you, so when people ask me for advice on writing or public speaking or science communication, I don’t give anything specific, because advice isn’t universal.

Instead, I say, “find what works for you”. It can be applied to your job, your life, your hobbies, whatever. It’s so general it seems worthless, but I have found that a lot of folks, myself included, tend to think too narrowly and too rigidly. If everyone commutes to work at an office, so must I. If everyone can work on a set schedule, so must I. But I’m terrible at working in an office, and writing on a set schedule is a ridiculous proposition for me. I write in a room in my house, and (immediately impending deadlines not withstanding) I do so when it feels right for me, sometimes with music blaring (which is not conducive in an office environment).

As I wrote before in those links above, you might need a setting away from your house, and you may need a schedule to frame your work time. That’s great! It works for you! But then, it might not. Or there might be an even better way.

My advice is, if you can (without getting fired, dressed down by your boss, losing money, arrested for indecent exposure, etc.), try those other ways to see what works. You never know.

I’m super lucky to have found my way, and it really works for me. And now, after all these years (dammit, decades, and I’m still not sure how that happened) I’ve developed an instinct for what works and what doesn’t, even if it’s shuffling words around after a bit of mental free association.

I hope you can find your way. And as always, thanks for following me along mine.

You can email me at [email protected] (though replies can take a while), and all my social media outlets are gathered together at about.me. Also, if you don’t already, please subscribe to this newsletter! And feel free to tell a friend or nine, too. Thanks!