Authors’ conceptions of the writing process: making and discovering meaning

While Flower and Hayes asserted that writers do not discover but rather make

meaning through writing, writers in this study appear to feel that the writing process is a process of discovery for them (especially Coovadia and Orford). Yet they have a sense of agency in this discovery which corroborates Flower and Hayes’ assertion indirectly: their descriptions of the writing process overall were not of accidental discovery of meaning but of the kind of discovery that takes effort and planning, similar to the discoveries made by the skilled Maori navigators Orford uses in her metaphor for her writing process.

The authors varied in the length and coherence of their descriptions of the overall writing process. Orford and Coovadia had well-developed metaphors for the writing

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One of the implications is that building learners’ general knowledge around a topic so that they can engage meaningfully with a text is as important when it comes to writing as it is in reading in terms of building schemata. While a writer may not know what they want to write about before they start writing, the more experiences or stimuli they have the better for setting content goals, choosing rhetorical problems to solve, and generating ideas. Reading remains central in this regard, but not simply from the perspective of studying the content or style of stories. Rather this research suggests that reading for writing needs to be approached from a number of angles, such as an exploration of what a student personally enjoys and sees and effective writing and what content themes they find gripping. This implies exposure to a variety of prescribed works, and not simply the standard literary canon. It also implies a point at which learners are able to select their own books to read, identify favourite authors and develop self knowledge of personal preferences in terms of what moves them. Students need to develop the independent thinking and analytical or even intuitive skills to be able to get a clear picture of the kind of writing they might want to emulate or of themes they may want to research further (as pointed out by all four authors).

A further implication would be the need to avoid false standardization in teaching ideal writing attitudes is suggested by the more marked differences between authors in terms of when and how revision and evaluation, generation of ideas, breaks and level of co operation between author and editors or readers. Rituals, symbols, relationships, and writing process goals need to work for a particular individual rather and one should probably avoid generalized dictums such as ‘all authors should write in mornings or have a collaborator’ or ‘never revise anything until you’ve completely finished your creative phase.’

process, with Orford in particular having a very structured description of how her writing process works. Naturally these summaries leave out important details and showed why further probing with specific focus questions based on literature study was essential. As Csikszentmihalyi (1997: 4) pointed out, in famous people’s descriptions of their process, years of training and work are often ‘telescoped’ and only the highpoints or sloughs are remembered clearly.

Beake and Van de Ruit had less of a single overarching metaphor but nevertheless a clear idea how they worked, going into lot of detail early on in their descriptions. Orford and Coovadia’s metaphors of navigation and bonsai cultivation implied skilled craftsmanship rather than simply talent, while Beake and Van de Ruit’s descriptions also implied the development of their processes and expertise through trial and error and well-timed advice from others, in addition to following their own instincts. Exploratory navigation, bonsai cultivation, imagining landscapes people populate, or dancing in a medium, not only involve people interacting with nature (the word ‘organic’ as a descriptor of process came up in Van de Ruit’s interview and Coovadia’s), but also express ideas of structure in motion, fluidity and steady

movement, growth or rhythm and an element of unpredictability . These are not static metaphors, nor are they fast-moving ones. While more prosaic metaphors such as plumbing, a sausage factory and, most notably across authors, construction work, emerged later in the interviews when discussing some aspects of writing craft, the images that emerged to do with the overall writing process suggested overarching concerns with aesthetics and the adventures of exploration and cultivation.

All of the authors implied that a writer has to show up at their writing space and do the work required, and not simply wait idly for inspiration to strike. Yet there was also a sense of adventure - that one must make allowances for serendipity and the mysterious role of the subconscious in the creative writing process. Patience, stamina and a broad base of knowledge were important if a writing project is to succeed. Some explorations have to be abandoned, but there was a sense that this should be fairly predictable early on in the writing process if it involves the entire book, as the initial conception of the novel needs to be well planned if it is to sustain long term work in the face of inevitable setbacks. There is thus a surprising impatience with the idea of writers’ block, with the implication that this was a potential waste of energy and time which the professional writer can ill afford.

Notwithstanding elements of surprise and serendipity, what emerges from these initial descriptions of the writing process is a sense of a process that these experienced authors feel comfortable and in control of. There is a sense that this awareness of and confidence in the writing process developed over time (most strikingly in John van de Ruit’s case) pointing to the development of expertise through practice. When

Berkenkotter’s research revealed that Murray had many writing patterns internalized his long-term memory, this bothered him, as he felt it could indicate his writing process was in danger of becoming ‘too glib, too slick, too professional, too polished’ (1983: 171-172). Coovadia expressed a similar sentiment, but the other authors felt differently, seeing their increased confidence in their writing processes as a natural development based on accumulated experience.

7.2 The creative writing process