On how the writing process is like being pregnant
Writing is a lot like being pregnant. There’s the end goal or product, but then there is the process or journey, sometimes overwhelming, to get there. At the end of a pregnancy journey there is hopefully a healthy baby, and at the end of a writing process there is a piece of writing. But there are many highs and lows in-between. What I’ve learnt during both pregnancy and writing is that how I view the process itself affects the ‘product’, conversely, having an end goal or product to aspire towards helps me get through the sometimes gruelling process.
There’s a dynamic relationship between process and product where they affect each other, it’s not either/or because both are an important part of the experience.
For example, pregnancy is a very medicalised process focused on the end goal of delivering a healthy baby. But if I got caught up too much with the numbers, trying to control the process, trying to control how it would turn out and focusing on the outcome (which is an illusion because complete control is an illusion), I would have missed out on the incredible experience of being pregnant, too caught up in anxiety to be really present.
As difficult as it was at times (including a hospitalisation), it was an extraordinary, singular experience - I almost have no words for the fact that I had two hearts beating in my body and what that felt like. And the fact that I felt like I had a direct connection or line to the universe.
Similarly, with writing if I focus too much on the end product of a piece of writing or trying to get published, I would not be present enough to just be with the writing, where it could emerge in a flow state that was pleasurable and joyful. I also discovered things about myself through the writing process which had nothing to do with the end product.
I think if you focus too much on the end goal you can miss out on some of the discovery, learnings and mystery in the experience, whether it’s pregnancy or writing. Which is not to say that the goal is irrelevant – it gives purpose and meaning to the process.
I think this is because writing and pregnancy are both acts of surrender and acts of drive at the same time.
I think about it in terms of healthy masculine and feminine energy. Healthy masculine energy is laser-focused, doesn’t allow itself to be distracted or caught up in petty things, does the things that need to get done. It very much makes things happen. Sometimes this energy is very much needed.
And then there’s the more feminine energy of allowing things to happen, of just being and receiving. Pregnancy was an experience of both – of the feminine energy of just being with my body as went through things, actively growing another human inside me and I was just letting it happen. But at the same time, there were a lot of pressures and expectations that I experienced during the medical process of pregnancy where I had to say no, I don’t want that or I don’t want to do it this way. My masculine energy stayed focused on having this baby no matter what and not getting caught up with the medical establishment’s idea of how it should be because I was an older pregnant woman (I gave birth in my mid-40’s) or to being racialised in a medical system that was largely monocultural (shortly after I gave birth, this happened to another pregnant Asian woman in a Prague hostpial. Horrifying as it is, I wasn’t completely surprised given my experience of a Czech hospital).
So there’s this dance between masculine and feminine energy in pregnancy, but also in writing as well. Especially in writing the first draft of my novel – that was very like giving birth, the laser-focus of working to reach the point of finishing a first draft, but also, moments of receiving, where the writing emerged with its own energy, like a gift.
And I think in acts of creativity (which writing and pregnancy both are), it’s a dance that changes across a project, over time, and across different seasons of life. There are times where I have to be more goal-oriented, other times where I have to let it be, and just be with it.
What acts of creativity always gives me though, is an experience of agency. I always thought that agency meant being powerful, but actually there’s both vulnerability and power - that’s where true agency lies. In my experiences of writing and pregnancy, I felt extremely vulnerable, cut open - but also, at the same time, so powerful.
I talk more about this in a podcast interview I did while 8 months pregnant with Lux, a wonderful writer and mentor whom I worked with on the first draft of my novel.
If you feel like you could benefit from some guidance in the dance between the process and product in writing, you can check out my offering, Writer’s Compass: