There’s Writing—and Then There’s Writing about Writing
By Barbara Linn Probst | May 19, 2021 |
I remember how amazed I was to discover that the author of Charlotte’s Web and the author of The Elements of Style (the 1959 update) were one and the same. E.B. White, an icon of the literary world, was clearly skilled at two kinds of writing: he could write, and he could write about writing. There are others who do that, too. Anne Lamott, Stephen King. And, of course, a lot of us here on Writer Unboxed.
Not to compare myself to these literary giants— yet the notion of having one foot in each river intrigues me.
Although I’ve written for nearly my whole life, I’ve tended to alternate, rather than doing both at the same time. I wrote not-too-bad poetry and short stories in my early twenties, then a truly terrible quasi-autobiographical novel. After that, I spent a long time writing nonfiction—a book for parents on raising an out-of-the-box child, an academic tome on clinical assessment, and more articles for scholarly journals than I care to remember. When I’d had enough, I returned to my first love, fiction, and now have two novels in print with a third slated for Fall 2022.
Soon after returning to fiction, however, I added a second aspect to my writing life: essays on the craft of writing. Since my first guest blog was posted three years ago, I’ve published nearly fifty essays on a wide range of writing-related topics. I like both kinds of writing, which seem to engage different parts of myself—a creative side that loves the nonlinear, intuitive, and mysterious nature of the story-making process; and an analytical side that the scholar-researcher in me craves and enjoys.
I’m not the only person who does two kinds of writing, so I began to wonder what other people’s experience was like.
I was fortunate to be able to speak with five amazing women who, in different ways, have been successful at both fiction and nonfiction: Beth Kephart, Ellen Notbohm, Katie Rose Guest Pryal, Kathryn Craft, and Tiffany Yates Martin. Together, they have published women’s and young adult fiction, nonfiction books on topics from autism to editing to gender issues in academia, and hundreds of essays on a whole of subjects. I asked them how they approached both kinds of writing and what role each played in their lives
Externally, how do you structure or manage your time to accommodate these two kinds of writing?
I was curious to know if people toggled back-and-forth between two kinds of writing—for example, by dividing up the day—or immersed themselves in one at a time, for as long as it needed.
The responses varied, depending on the kinds of writing people did as well as (probably) by temperament and personal style. People who also worked as developmental editors, with clients awaiting their report by a specified date, seemed to be more deliberate in how they structured their time: mornings for their own writing (whether fiction or content creation), afternoons for whatever project they were editing or had taken on for a publisher or client. Kathryn Craft actually works in two different parts of her house, a loft office in the morning, a comfy chair by a downstairs window in the afternoon. For Tiffany Yates Martin, who publishes fiction under a pseudonym: “They’re two different sides of my brain and it helps me to separate them that way—plus it creates that routine that lets the Muse know what time to show up for work every day!”
Others weren’t so structured. For Beth Kephart, “there is no daily writing practice for me. Weeks can go by between words written on the page, since much of the time I’m teaching or reading the work of others. But when I’m obsessed with a new idea, with both the time and desire, I go all at it.” So too, Ellen Notbohm says: “my writing has to come as an organic part of my life, my day.” After all, she points out: “I don’t eat the same thing or the same amount of food every day.”
The proportion of time devoted to different kinds of writing can vary, depending on both inspiration and the type of writing that’s being undertaken. An idea for an essay might arise that can—and perhaps must—be written out in a single long sitting, while a book needs to be tackled in small, perhaps irregular, doses. For that reason, Katie Rose Guest Pryal likes to balance writing essays, which can be completed quickly and provide a more immediate gratification, and books, which are the epitome of “delayed gratification.” I’m like that too. At this point in my life, fiction takes the form of novels, which are long projects, while nonfiction takes the form of essays, which are short projects. Others, like Tiffany, write entire books that are about the writing process.
And sometimes everything gets upended because an idea that’s been simmering in the background starts to clamor for attention and has to be allowed to move into center stage.
Tiffany describes it this way: “I tend to follow my inclinations, so even though I’m eyeballs-deep in editing right now, there’s a story that’s been percolating on the back burner pretty regularly lately, which tells me it may need to be worked on soon. This is how most of my writing develops—one project kind of brewing quietly in the background for a while and fleshing itself out while I’m working on another, and when I’m ready to write the next one a lot of the groundwork has come together already.”
Others also spoke of that sense of urgency that needs to be heeded. For Beth, literary essays “shouldn’t be written unless they are born of a great urgency. And urgency has its own timetable. We can’t force it.”
Ellen notes that the urgency has to be accompanied by patience. At this point in her writing career, she understands “how to let the creative well fill at its own pace and how to wait until meaningful stuff is ready to come forward.”
Those complementary forces, urgency and patience, resonate with me as well. My own experience is that writing a craft blog or report (like this one) is useful when I need a break from the intensity of a novel.
Internally, what does each kind of writing require, and gives back?
For Kathryn, the different kinds of writing “feed different parts of me,” in mutually-nourishing ways, and can’t be separated. Just as her experience as a novelist enables her to write essays about the craft of fiction, her non-fiction writing—craft blogs and developmental evaluations of clients’ work—re-ignites her fiction. “Formulating what I’ve learned and want to say, to give to others, helps to re-energize and jazz me for my own writing. It also challenges me to stretch and figure out what I think and know.” Kathryn “thinks on the page,” like Joan Didion, who is famous for declaring: “I write to find out what I’m thinking” (New York Times, 1976).
Katie further notes that all “writing about writing” is not the same. She differentiates between the “writing about writing” that she does to share with the public and the “writing about writing” that she does for herself only, to help her own writing process. “When I’m stuck with a writing project, I will write about how I’m stuck, in a meta fashion. I write quite literally, ‘I am stuck because…’ I will sometimes ask myself questions about my writing project, and then I will answer those questions. This writing-about-my-writing strategy has never failed to help me find my way through whatever problem I’m facing.”
No matter what kind of writing it is, for Beth, “I give my entire heart and head to everything I write. And everything I write yields something to me. Some satisfaction, in the wake of the exhaustion that every good new piece requires.”
For Ellen, too, whether fiction or nonfiction, “I write to connect with myself and with others. My writing requires total honesty with myself, and that means that I don’t aspire to publish everything I write. Whatever I write that day, I obviously needed to. Sometimes it’s ugly, and that can be useful too. Sometimes I just need to get the stink out. If those pages go directly into the shredder, they served their purpose and probably cleared the way for writing that I can and will share.”
Different kinds of writing, of different duration, yet a similar sense of immersion. That resonated with me too.
Some concluding thoughts …
When I began to work on this piece, I felt pretty certain that nonfiction writing takes place in my intellectual brain—up in the cerebral cortex, where I think—while fiction writing happens lower down, in a more subconscious and intuitive part of myself. But I’m starting to think that’s not true, and that both kinds of writing require both parts of myself. It’s not by chance, after all, that Tiffany Yates Martin calls her handbook for writers Intuitive Editing.
Perhaps it’s more a matter of emphasis, or the stage in the process when the complementary mind enters. When I write fiction, the planning and polishing phases seem to rely on a more intellectual capacity, while the depiction of character, relationships and emotional growth need that flash of subconscious insight. When I write nonfiction—this piece, for example—my intellectual brain organizes the material, but the leap of understanding comes from somewhere else.
Or maybe that’s just my way. You might see it differently …
What about you? Do you “writing about writing,” even if no one sees it but you? What is the role of “writing about writing” for you?
[coffee]
Barbara (she/her) is an author of contemporary women’s fiction living on an historic dirt road in New York’s Hudson Valley. Each of her acclaimed novels (Queen of the Owls, 2020; The Sound Between the Notes, 2021; and The Color of Ice, 2022) was a medalist for prestigious national awards, including the Sarton Award for Contemporary Fiction, the Independent Book Publishers Award, the Hawthorne Prize, and the Nautilus Award for Fiction. Her fourth novel, Roll the Sun Across the Sky, launches in May 2025 and has received stellar advance praise. Barbara has also published more than 80 articles on the craft of writing and the writing life. She has a PhD in Clinical Social Work and has been a therapist, teacher, researcher, and advocate for out-of-the-box kids and their families. When not writing, she’s a serious amateur pianist and a traveler to spots from Iceland to the Himalayas. Learn more on her website .
Hi Barbara, sorry for being off-topic, but I am just reading “The Sound Between the Notes” and I am loving it!! I have been regularly reading your posts here at WU and was very curious about how you write fiction (compared to writing about fiction – ha! so I found a path back into the topic of this post after all!!).
I love the way you describe the complicated feelings Susannah has regarding her teenage son – loving him, remembering the times when he was still cuddly, but at the same time yearning for a bit of freedom … I have a son the same age and can relate on so many levels :-) – I am about half way through the book now and cannot wait to get back to it!
Thank you for your kind words! Like the amazing writers who shared their reflections with me for this article, I would say that the two kinds of writing really do support each other. E.g.: stepping away to ponder human relationships from a more analytic perspective can provide important insight for crafting fictitious characters and interactions—as long as those insights are “animated” and brought to life on the page. I really do see it as a kind of conversation between the conscious and subconscious parts of our intelligence!
Your example of E.B. White is interesting and I have never thought of my writing life as falling into separate genres. I JUST WRITE. While raising my children, I wrote for a small university journal and contributed to a column in the local paper. While living in Des Moines, Iowa, I used my nursing background to write researched journal articles for a nursing journal, and then began to contribute to a health column in the Des Moines Register. But during all of that, I was always writing fiction, my true love. Thus, I have written three novels, a memoir and many stories. Some of the stories have been published, and I’m still determined to publish at least ONE of my novels. Writing has always been part of my life. Thanks for this post.
Thank you, Beth, and yes, we are alike in this way :-) I go back and forth, too. For example, just this morning as I was pondering a scene in my WIP, I had a flash of insight about my own process, so I quickly switched Word documents and opened up the post I’d been drafting for next month’s WU offering. I would venture to guess that your nonfiction essays on nursing and health have contributed to your fiction—whether it’s those details that ground a story and show the reader that the author knows her stuff, or the depth that can come from years of experience. And probably the other way around, too!
Barbara, I am tantalized by your references to your WIP, so much so that I looked on your website to learn more—but not a clue. Are you willing to give us a few hints here without losing energy from the novel itself? If so, I completely understand; that is my custom also.
LOL Nothing on my website yet! It’s too early and I am still shamelessly promoting the book that was just released! But thank you so much for your enthusiasm. It helps me to keep going :-)
I’m not sure f my reply to you got posted, Anna, so I will try it again … Thank you so much for your interest and enthusiasm but no, it’s too soon to post anything about my third book. I’m still shamelessly promoting my recently-released one LOL and need to give it space to have its own life for a while :-)
Thanks for this piece. I like getting a glimpse into other writers’ process and I have a wonderful book by Sarah Stodola on the writing lives of great authors.
Like Beth, I just write too. Sometimes it’s fiction, sometimes NF, but first and foremost I write for myself, to figure things out. Like Katie, I write about why I’m having trouble with a scene, possibilities. For every wip document, there’s a corresponding notes document that’s 5-10X longer.
Fiction is harder for me because it has to make sense and my characters don’t always cooperate. I’m learning to trust them the further I get into this writing life. Truly, writing is a gift that I give to myself and when ready, to others.
I have read Ellen Notbohm’s novel, A River by Starlight, and it is amazing literary original style and a compelling story. To be able to then write nonfiction self help is so vastly different, it’s hard to imagine one person wrote both styles.
I wonder if all of you wrote both types of writing as children, so it became easy to shift from one type to other. I’m also curious how many of you played an instrument beginning in childhood. My theory is that music is fiction and nonfiction simultaneously, using all sides of the brain.
I know Ellen well, and I agree that she is an astonishing writer! I can’t speak for any of my colleagues, but indeed I wrote in many formats as a child—diaries, poetry, stories and, later, essays for school. I also played the piano, which of course helped so much to frame my current novel. And I completely agree with you about music! It requires the intellectual mind (to keep track of notes, temp, phrasing, etc.), as well as the intuitive or feeling mind (to hear the music behind the notes). That’s what I came to understand as my own playing improved, and what my protagonist comes to understand …
What an interesting question, Elizabeth. I did play a couple of instruments–organ, and also clarinet (the coolest of the band instruments, of course). :D I did not play either of them well.
I have always written both fiction and nonfiction–I was a journalist as far back as high school, in addition to writing short stories, and I have always loved writing research papers and reviews. (Editors are born, not made, it turns out.)
I have a similar theory that creatives are creative in multiple ways–I know so many authors who are also gifted at, say, baking or painting or gardening. To me, maybe this falls under that banner? Like a lot of other writers I also enjoy a variety of other creative pursuits.
Love the question and correlation.
Hi Elizabeth, to answer your question, I have always loved music, but started and dropped piano and flute, ending up in chorus and musicals. I think more of my ear for writing is from my experience in dance and 19 years as a dance critic.
Just as Tiffany said that editors are born, teachers are born as well—and I credit my natural ability to explain things for my desire to write essays and teach about writing. I am a total writing geek, and love to spread the craft knowledge I’ve gained to others equally enthused!
Barbara, thanks for including me!
I love this! As a long-time journaler, I do a fair amount of meta-level writing to work out ideas, much the way Katie does here. And I’ve been feeling the pull to write essays as a complement to the longer haul (and different focus) of fiction, so it’s really nice to see how others work that balance. I’m still figuring out whether it works better to change modes on different days versus different times of day; I find that task switching usually takes more energy than maintaining momentum on one thing.
You raise so many interesting points! Personally, I can’t write fiction unless I’m deeply immersed for however long I need to be, so the structure of having to switch tasks or modalities at a certain hour of the day would never work! For me, it needs to be much more organic, which means it can vary … Then again, as Kathryn and Tiffany noted, when there are deadlines to meet for clients, then one might have to set one’s own writing aside until those tasks have been addressed. So I’m sure this is another of the questions whose answer is: it depends!
I love how you put it, Vijaya, especially in your last sentence. You echo Joan Didion, who writes to find out what she thinks. It’s a form of meditation, to me. Some people prefer to write longhand, for that reason, because it slows the process down … I haven’t tried that myself, but now I am curious to see what the difference might be!
Barbara, I have had a checkered career with words: in my early days, I wrote the captions on the back of a broad notecard series for a nature photographer, proofread the Yellow Pages, wrote enhanced descriptions for reticent men for a dating site (think of dudes who write “I like beer and motorcycles” as their entire personality description), wrote goofy radio ads (and did a bit of voiceover) for an online storage company—I could go on.
Since then, lots of essays and journalistic pieces (and writing about whiskey). And a fair amount of fiction writing, but alas, the graces I’ve begged to visit me there lost my address, but I slowly plug away.
You also write great comments! It all goes into the mix, including the Match.com profiles, and one never knows when something will light a spark in a totally unexpected way! Fiction ignites an idea for an essay, just as a few lines of reflection on life or art (or whiskey) can ignite a scene in a novel or open a door so a band-new character can enter … That’s what makes it so unpredictable, and so much fun (to me) Thanks for commenting!
Love all these insights, Barbara! An interesting take on a topic we don’t see much about, and it was fascinating to me to see the similarities–and differences–in how each author approaches these two different types of writing. Thanks!
Thank you for sharing your experience with me! I too was fascinated to see the different perspectives, and (of course) to try to place myself within them. I suspect that the variations in approach have to do with personal temperament (a preference for structure vs improvisation), general life circumstances, and the specific projects-on-the-stove-at-the-moment.
What a fun dive into an interesting topic. I don’t have much to add but wanted to express that I enjoyed the post and the varying perspectives.
Thank you! That’s so nice to hear!