Writing is a habit. To say it the other way around, writing that has not become habitual is not writing but composition-making. Of course this may be my own way of speaking, so I should explain further. By writing, I mean the act of writing as an everyday activity. Writing is when a piece appears because it must be written, without sweating over choosing a subject, and one writes it because it is being written. Setting up a subject in advance and measuring each part of the piece against that subject is composition-making. If writing is pulling thread from a ball of yarn and laying it out long, then composition-making is using that thread to make clothing.
Making a composition requires much more concentrated labor and a kind of technique. Writing has the advantage of honesty, but it can lack polish. As you can see, this is a kind of circular logic. As an explanation, it is just saying the same thing again. I call it writing because one writes, and I call it composition-making because one puts effort into making a piece according to a certain purpose, like making clothes. I do not know how others usually call it. They may not distinguish the two. To explain once more, a work an author publishes as a book is a composition that has been made, while a piece the same author posts on a blog about daily life as a service for fans can be called writing.
I am talking about writing. That is, I am not talking about making a piece that has a special purpose and a clear, even if blurred, outline and skeleton for achieving that purpose. I am talking about continuing to write in daily life. When writing is repeated, a certain tone begins to appear. It is like people in certain occupations developing the occupational habit of automatically describing situations in advertising copy. Similarly, when one reads a writer’s novels for a long time, one begins to think of sentences that describe current situations in that narrator’s voice, or, in the case of translated books, in the tone of the translation. In the same way, when the act of unfolding thought into writing is repeated, I begin to want to rewrite situations in the tone I use when I write. Passing through that gate is what allows thought to branch and grow. If I try to write vaguely without passing through it, I cannot move a single step beyond the thought I had at the first moment of trying to write. I have not reached it yet, but I think that as such experiences accumulate, I will also discover my own style.
Above all, writing is a personal act. It moves forward with thought, like chatting. It is a personal act as a human being. Composition-making is a little different. It is less like talking with someone in front of me and more like raising the voice a little wider. What matters is that even such personal acts must be repeated if one wants to be able to do them when needed. If one spends about a month too busy to speak with anyone, one’s speech becomes awkward. Even if the other person does not notice, one feels that something is unnatural. Speech returns quickly once one talks, but awkwardness in writing does not disappear so quickly. When I wrote by hand in notebooks, such periods led to one- or two-line pieces, simple notes, continuing for a while. It is probably the same now. I think it is better than expected when writing grows longer as I continue. And for that to happen, nothing seems as important as writing every day the kind of writing that grows longer as one writes.
What I originally wanted to say is this: writing should become a habit; composition-making should not become a habit. In technical work or exercise, people most often say, “relax.” It is enjoyable to write every day and observe the process by which what I want to say naturally changes into something others can understand more easily. But it is impossible to plan forcibly every day, make an outline, create a story for each paragraph according to that outline, and turn the direction at a set point as if making a composition. Such writing should be made at truly important moments, and above all, one should not force oneself to do it every day.
This has become something like advice, but in truth I am not in a position to advise anyone, especially about writing, since I am literally a hobbyist. So I cannot say I wrote it to give real help. I can, however, say it is an excuse for myself. It is my story. I try to remove force from writing. I try to write every day, though not long or grand pieces. But I am not trying to write well-made pieces every day, and I do not serialize because I do not think I write pieces that can become promises with others. Above all, I avoid it because a promise is pressure. Please read this as an excuse for those things.
Original Korean article: 글쓰기 습관