Chapter One

The Agony and the Methodology

The pain of writing is legend. And its intensity hardly varies between the student facing a term-paper deadline, the office worker thrashing out a report, and the seasoned professional writing for publication.

When I run a writing seminar, I usually hand out a questionnaire that, among other things, quizzes the participants about the emotion they bring to their writing. They like to quote Dorothy Parker, the New York literary wit who said she hated writing, but loved having written. "It's agony and ecstasy," one writer said. "When I get the idea, and when I'm finished . . . it's joyful. Everything in between is agony."

Why should that be? Physically, writing's relatively easy work. Take it from a guy who's loaded log ships, pumped gas, and tarred roofs in the midsummer sun. Writers work on their butts and out of the weather. So what's with all this whining?

And why the avoidance, which one writer labeled "tap dancing"? "I'll dance around the story," he said, "putting it off because I think it's harder than it invariably is."

What's the first thing you do when facing a new writing assignment? I ask. "Get a cup of coffee," a journalist replied. "More difficult story, more coffee, more trips to the bathroom, more procrastination."

"But is it really procrastination," another writer asked, "when I'm walking around, getting another cup of coffee, and thinking about the story? More likely, it's a paralysis from possibilities: possible stories, possible leads, possible story