An idealized scenario I have ever so often seen portrayed and/or simply imagined myself about writing is of a writer just going about their non-writing business and all of a sudden inspiration strikes their brain like a lightning bolt, and they magically have the free time at that very moment to run to their writing implement of choice (be it a pen and notebook, typewriter, computer keyboard, or whathaveyou) and the torrent of creativity commences!
And at the end of this idealized electro-charged creative session the creative work is completed to perfection, just like that.
Now, as anyone who has pursued a creative endeavor knows, this idealization rarely if ever happens. The writing process is far messier than that.
I will admit, however, that I have experienced limited versions of it at times: as when - for example - having spent two weeks designing the plot and symbolic substructure of my first short story, and during the unrelated act of brushing my teeth or something, the first sentence of the story popped into my head fully-formed; or when - after having been stuck for several days unable to end my second story the way I had originally planned it - during the unrelated act of eating lunch or something, a lightning flash simply zapped the planned ending out of existence, which allowed me to stop trying to force it, and thereafter I was able to end the story naturally and quickly.
Even these small examples (which were supposed to be of neat-and-compact inspired moments) exhibit how messy the writing process really is. I had no idea how to begin my first story until the idea came to me seemingly from out of nowhere, and the ending I felt was correct and was attempting to force upon my second story simply wouldn't work.
Of course, it could be that only my writing process is messy, and non-representative of writers in general. But owing to the ambiguity and difficulty of language as well as the potential convolutedness of conceptual frameworks, I have a feeling that this messiness of the writing process is shared by at least half of all writers (if not more than half).
Having said that, I will now share an example of some real messiness. While on the surface the book Essays in Science and Philosophy [2004 - 2009] might appear to just be a collection of essays written during a specified time period, it is in truth the best 27% of two unpublished traditional-book-sized books: Transfixing Halcyon Ardor (2005) and Pantheology (2008). Specifically, essays 1 through 4 are chapters 1, 2, 4, and 7 from the 2005 book; while essays 5 through 7 are sections 2, 15, and 22 from the 2008 book.
What could have been two dissatisfying books of 140 to 180 pages each ultimately ended up being one satisfying book of 84 pages. As it happened, the conclusions reached in Pantheology (2008) were not as I envisioned them and made me want to quit writing altogether. But after quitting for a while I began to revisit the material in both unpublished books and therewith endeavored to write one last book that would encompass the best of all of it, and the results of this effort became Aamrgan in 2012.
At that point, Aamrgan was supposed to be the last thing I wrote ever, but thankfully my attempt to quit writing did not work out as planned either.
One of the most important things I have learned about the creative process is that plans are great and necessary but in order to not have a trapping or blocking effect they must remain completely changeable as well as destroyable at all times.
What is coherent and satisfying about the essays is that together they originate and represent a line of inquiry the apex of which ended up being Aamrgan and, ultimately, On the Preservation of Enthusiasm.
Sometimes I think though: if only I could have On the Preservation of Enthusiasm be the concluding part of a single book with Aamrgan as its penultimate part, and the essays as its first part, then I would have a traditional-book-sized book of 128 pages or so that would be what both of the unpublished books were trying to be in the first place.
Unfortunately, pasting them together like that would not produce a coherent read. They are meant to be read separately, and were written separately; but it cannot be denied that they have a common origin which is very messy, awash with many notes and paragraphs and chapters which are disconnected, disjointed, dead-ending, and erroneous.
I do believe, however, that without all of this hidden messiness the finished works would not have turned out the way they did. Of course it would be great if the writing process were not so messy, or maybe it would just be less challenging and perhaps even less enjoyable (so maybe it would not be so great).
Sometimes several hours will be spent painstakingly writing two paragraphs that you just end up deleting right after you finish writing them. Sometimes a character you have spent time developing and who you thought would play a major role in your story actually ends up not being in the story at all. These are the unfun moments but crucially important decisions that have the power to drastically alter finished products.
Obviously the messiness of the writing process cannot be eliminated, as the mind without a doubt produces a surplus of ideas, and frequently imagines wrong connections. But I believe that we can at least reduce the messiness and/or its seemingly ill effects by remembering this: sometimes abandoning an idea is far more important than coming up with one.