On the Writing Process

12 Feb, 2026

I have always been fascinated by personality tests. I first discovered a copy of the MBTI (AKA the 16 personalities quiz) when I was a kid, and retaking it over and over became something of a passion of mine. It was probably the most bizarre hobby a 12-year-old boy could have had, but it was mine. I’ve revisited this passion over the years, though now I'm aware that these tests are not a reliable way to discover anyone’s inner secrets. 12-year-old me, needless to say, would be disappointed.

On my most recent go-round with one of these tests, I came across a question that stuck to me: “Your personal work style is closer to spontaneous bursts of energy than organized and consistent efforts.” I was supposed to indicate how much I agreed with the statement. I agreed to the maximum.¹ That is true of me, and it’s been true as long as I can remember.

This is not something I’ve ever liked about myself. I’ve always seen the planners of the world as the do-gooders, the geniuses who have it together. I have never seen magic in my ability to ram up against a deadline, consume myself with panicked energy, and throw some BS together to meet it. I acknowledge it is a skill—just an obtuse and ugly one. In a perfect world, such a skill would be unnecessary. My success would be assured by all those preparations I made weeks ago, and life would be all smiles and rainbows.

I’ve tried planning and scheduling in the past. Just not very hard. I won’t pretend I’ve ever really committed to becoming the kind of person who lives and dies by a planner. The idea of doing that is, to tell the truth, nauseating.

On a certain level, I don’t know if I want to change. It’s not about how much I like or dislike it: it’s about who I am. My status as a procrastinator is one of those traits that’s always felt innate. As many times as I’ve hemmed and hawed and maybe’d and gamed my answers in hopes of getting a “better” personality on one of those online tests, I have never been able to lie on these kinds of questions. Why deny it? It’s like a denial of my own humanity. Hath not a slacker hands, et cetera.

So what’s that got to do with writing process, ya bozo? You put it up in big bold letters at the top of the page.

Well, first of all: rude. Second of all: it’s got everything to do with it. It’s why I’m such a bad writer.

Bad writers

I’ve got a master of fine arts in fiction from NC State. Writers who have not done MFAs (and a few who have) have some pre-conceived notions about what they’re like. If you’re not familiar with these notions, some common ones you hear include:

• MFA programs all produce the same kind of writers and the same kind of fiction
• MFA programs are biased towards literary realism and will railroad all students into that form
• MFA programs tend to study the same few short story writers and/or theory texts, changing only occasionally when a new trend pops up
• MFA programs are stuffy walled gardens full of lamers

I won’t say there’s no truth to any of these claims, but I will say that none of them jibe with my experience. My MFA was a place where several writers got together, wrote a bunch of crap, and talked about the crap each week in a workshop. All the while, we taught undergrads in exchange for meager stipends and spent many hours goofing off in drafty upstairs cubicles. After two years, we defended a thesis composed of the crap we’d written, got degrees, and went on our way.

I went into the MFA expecting to come out fundamentally changed in some way. Some part of me wanted the stereotypes to be true. I wanted a stuffy professor to mold me into a Raymond Carver-loving, sweater vest-wearing egghead. But of course, that was never going to happen. MFAs are not magical writing factories. Mine was a very human place full of people looking to get better at something they loved. We approached that mostly by doing a lot of it.

Professors varied in the advice they would give, and most of it was individualized to the student. But one of our most common topics was writing process, and the tips given on this topic were always similar. Be consistent; draft generously, edit stingily; be consistent; write down ideas when you get them; be consistent; kill your darlings; land sakes, Michael, be consistent, just sit down and write something every day, we don’t care what. God.

One of my greatest hopes was that the MFA would imbue me with the discipline to write a novel. But the discipline never arrived, and neither has the novel. What I learned on this topic was what I’d already learned, what I’d always known: consistent effort is key. Slow and steady wins the race, among other clichés.

One piece of advice I remember well was to abandon the crutch of “inspiration.” Writers who only wrote when they were inspired didn’t write much. Writers who sat at the desk every day and got the words down were the serious ones. A good writing process is built on habit. It doesn’t have to look like sitting in a study at 6:30am every day and pecking at a typewriter, but it does need to look disciplined, prepared, thorough.

So, yeah, my writing process is bad. In the year-plus since I graduated and mastered the fine arts, it’s only gotten worse. I have long leaned on unholy inspiration, and I struggle to break out of its clutches. All of my best drafting has been done rapidly in a haze at 3 in the morning, while all of my worst drafting has been done painstakingly, a page or two at a time over several weeks. I have succeeded with a more drawn-out revision process, but I find the success of the draft has affected the success of the project. I suspect that this, too, is a symptom of bad process.

Even now, writing this post, I do it in a flash under the spell of inspiration. A blog post! A glorified diary entry, really. These things should be easy to churn out, but I haven’t been able to. So what’s wrong with me? Am I doomed to be a bad writer forever?

Good writers?

Here’s my thesis: plenty of writers have bad processes. What’s my evidence? Really none at all, except that I’m not alone with this personality flaw. I know plenty of writers, and some of them are far deeper in the weeds with their executive function than me. (Don’t worry, I won’t name names.) It’s a stereotype that creative people are scatterbrained, but I have found there’s a grain of truth at the root of this stereotype. So if this problem is common among writers, some of them must be succeeding in spite of it.

Here’s a second idea: discipline can be built in strange places. When I approach a project I’m really invested in, even the grinding day-to-day aspects of it become more doable. I guess this is dreaded inspiration rearing its ugly head, but it gets to the kernel of why we write in the first place. One thing my MFA did teach me was to not box myself in, to accept different genre and reading interests as core to my work. This has freed me from the feeling that I’m wasting my time doing anything other than writing Big Important Stuff for an hour a day. If I can learn to check in every day for fun just-for-me projects, I can learn to do it for my fiction.

Maybe the most important lesson is that discipline can be built, period. At the end of the day, claiming that my tendency to procrastinate is somehow unshakeable is the real crutch I've leaned on. Since I met my wife, a hyper-prepared planner, I've become a more organized person than I ever thought I could be. Keeping house and coordinating calendars have become second nature. If I can learn to do that stuff, why can’t I build a better writing process?

So I'm starting with the basics. The main thing is working each day on some project: no word or page requirements involved, just something on the page. I've learned to appreciate the value of structure. When it's applied wisely, it makes our lives more peaceful instead of suffocating us. Finding that threshold will be different for each person, but right now, this is mine.

I’m still in the process of applying these lessons. But if you’re a writer, or a creative, or just someone who struggles with having it all together, I hope you can relate. Encoded personality types probably aren’t real, but our tendencies are. That doesn’t mean they have to define us or stop us from doing what we love.

I’m falling back in love with the writing process by making mine better. Other processes will take more work, but trust me, they’re next.