Writing Is Lonely

I watched documentary on the making of South Park that was aired on Sunday. It was fantastic. There was a very short scene where Trey Parker was talking about the part of the process where he is actually writing the script. In that part, he talks about how lonely and kind of sad it is.

The creative process is a wonderful group activity (provided you have a good group with a good group dynamic). You can bounce ideas off of each other and generate a truly amazing collective work. However, that is all pre-planning. That's conceptual stuff. When it comes to putting the words on paper, that is a one-man job.

You simply don't need two or three people all sharing a keyboard. And trying to collectively type will either be exceedingly time-consuming or exceedingly infuriating (imagine bouncing ideas for every single sentence).

So, it is one person in front of a notebook or a keyboard. And in that moment, you are alone. To extroverted people, this is murder. The same is true for the easily bored. Even I find myself constantly switching between my Word document and my web browser when I am starting up. It's not until I get really into a writing session that I stop juggling different activities, just to avoid that feeling of isolation. (Once I get the ball rolling, I get immersed in my world and don't feel so alone.)

It's no surprise that writers tend to be introverts. They're the people who want to spend time being alone. If that's you, then you've got no problem. Enjoy yourself, but do try the group dynamic to see what it's like. If loneliness does get under your skin, then either bite the bullet and tough it out, or find a way to ease into a session. Whatever your case may be, if you let that isolation become an unscalable wall, you will not be going very far.