"Entire Writing Process Is About Failure," Says Coates

Author Ta Nehisi Coates discussed the process of writing in a recent interview for the Atlantic Monthly:

"I have always considered the entire [writing] process [as being] about failure."

"Breakthroughs [in writing] come from putting an inordinate amount of pressure on yourself and seeing what you can take, hoping that you grow some new 'muscles' [in the process]."

The writing process "is not really all that mystical. It is repeated practice over and over again, and suddenly you become something that you had no idea you could [ever] really be."

"I strongly believe that writing is practically an act of physical courage. You get up and you have this great idea ... and you sit down to write it. Almost always what was brilliant before is somehow not so brilliant when you sit down to write it. It's as though you have music in your head," but when you try to get it out on the page it "is absolute hell. You fail."

"If you are doing [the process of writing] correctly, the translation of what you hear in your head will almost always come out badly on the page," during the first draft. "You have to give yourself a day, go back and revise over and over and over again until you get to something that is at least 70% of what you [originally] wanted. You try to go from really, really bad, to okay, to acceptable, and then you know that you've done your job. I never get to that perfect thing that was [originally] in my head. I always considered the entire process [to be] about failure."

In terms of writing as a profession, which is not for everyone, Coates said that there are limited slots and that it is hard to make a breakthrough but it is important for the aspiring writer to keep going. He said that the longer one sticks with the craft the more one's initial competition thins out. In the meantime, he said, one develops a "skill set" that other people won't have if they are new to the profession. It all boils down, he said, to perseverance.