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I’ve encountered some interesting questions since I started
writing.People want to know about what
I do and how I do it.So I thought I’d
share a little bit about my writing process.You know, for those interested in that sort of thing.Those of you who are just looking for more
“Hot Naked Women” posts probably won’t be interested.You can move along.(But thanks for being the more than 75% of
all web traffic that passes through my blog since that post was published.You really class up the place.)
First of all, I should say that I do have a writing process by which I create all my work, but it’s
not the most professional model you’ll find.The biggest flaw in my particular process is time.In addition to being a
novelist, anyone who has read many of my other posts knows that I’m also a
stay-at-home dad with an extremely creative four-year-old.I’d like to dedicate a specific time slot to
my writing each day and remain consistent, but I don’t have that luxury.The other day I turned my back for a few
seconds to get a drink and the child somehow managed to disassemble the
television remote.Therefore, I tend to
do most of my writing not at a quiet desk but in bed after everyone is asleep
or else at the dining room table where I can observe the play areas of the
house.I neither write for a
predetermined amount of time nor a specific number of words or pages.I write until I’m tired or until I can no
longer concentrate or until I have to stop to tend to my household chores.Or until it appears that the cat may be in
mortal danger.
Typically, I tend to compensate for my lack of writing focus
by spending more time thinking about
my work.I am constantly planning scenes
and feeling out characters and constructing new dialog while I go about my daily
routine of managing the house chores and rescuing the pets.As far as I’m concerned, daydreaming is just
a part of my job.(So to all those
teachers who told me to wake up and focus on my work in school, I say suck it!)(I’d also like to point out for the record
that I still haven’t found a practical use for any of that trigonometry
nonsense, either.)
Every great story begins with nothing more than an
idea.But not just any idea will
do.After all, I’ve had some pretty bad
ideas in my life.(That meat slicer
incident comes to mind…)It has to be
strong.It has to be packed with
potential.It has to be the kind of idea
I can build an entire world around.No
matter how cool I might think an epic battle between two scantily clad
supermodels in a giant tub of chocolate pudding might seem, there is simply no
way I can think to build a realistic plot leading up to such an event.Regardless of how many times I try…
When I have an idea that I can build a world from, I write the story.I won’t bore you with a long, drawn-out
description of how I go about sitting down and writing it.Mostly because I asked my wife to proof-read
this post and she told me you’d probably be bored with those seven pages…I don’t know why that would be.I’m sure you’re just devastated to miss out
on hearing all about how I construct a thorough set of notes on plotlines and
character development and progression outlines and how I’m very particular
about the kind of pen I use and what temperature I like the room to be
and…Well, maybe that page about my
bathroom breaks might have been a little too much information…Yeah, let’s just leave it at I write the story.
Once the manuscript is finished, I put it aside.I put some distance between it and
myself.I start a new story or I edit a
previous one.I read a book.I watch some movies.I engage myself in a good video game.I work on that monster I’m building in my
basement that my wife says I’ll never bring to life, like she knows anything
about reanimation science.It’s just not
thunderstorm season yet, that’s all.I
get my mind off the story as much as I can.Sometimes weeks or even months go by.By the time I return to the manuscript, it should feel new again.Then the editing process begins.
This is where the most difficult of the work is.I am an obsessive editor.I enter the process with a firm conviction
that my work is severely flawed and riddled with embarrassing errors that I
will probably never be able to fully eradicate.And I am, for all intensive purposes, absolutely correct.There’s no such thing as a perfect
story.There’s always one more word you
can change, one more sentence you can improve.And as the writer, I know what I meant
to say when I wrote it, making it difficult to see what I actually put on the paper.Just a single incorrect letter in tens of
thousands of words can have catastrophic results to a manuscript.Don’t believe me?Consider the difference between the words “message”
and “massage” for a moment.The
sentence, “Bill received a personal message from his mom,” can become a
dramatically different statement by changing only that one letter.With one single keystroke, your young adult
novel just became really freaky.I am compelled to read my work over and over
and over again.I question every line,
every word.I become utterly absorbed in
eradicating every possible error.I am obsessed with it.It’s not my best quality, I’ll admit, but
it’s useful for the end result.And it’s
not like I obsess over everything.Only over my writing.And sometimes pickles, but that’s an entirely
different discussion.
As you might imagine, the whole process can be very time
consuming.It can take many weeks just
to prepare a little short story.But the
end result can be extremely rewarding.After all I’ve done, all the hours I poured into it, the endless reading
and rereading…after all that…when I received that very first five-star review
on Amazon…I can’t describe how
satisfying that was.To love what you do
is one thing.To know that others love
what you do just as much as you…That
means an awful lot.