How I Write

 Four summers ago, I wrote about my writing "why" (along with my who, what, when, and where) and a then finally, my "how."

Back then, I commented that even after almost thirty years (now more than that), I hadn't settled on one "right" approach. The only thing that remained consistent was that, in the end, I needed to sit down and just do it.

Still true. 

Four years later, most of the post is accurate. One happy development is that the character who was playing hide and seek back then has seen fit to share her story with me, and inhabits the novel I'm currently trying to sell. These days, my "10 minutes a day" plan is the description of what my "how" looks like on a day-to-day basis. 

After a particularly challenging writing season, I find myself less concerned about how I write and more grateful that four years later, I'm still writing. That makes it a lot more fun to revisit the post below.

How my process looks depends on what I'm working on. Over time, I've learned to come at different projects from different angles. With fiction, I start with characters; with non-fiction, a proposal that sets parameters for an idea. If I'm writing an article, I'm conscious of time. Experience in writing for magazines and online sites has taught me to aim for an hourly rate, and I set out to complete pieces in a time frame that earns me that rate.

But writing, like any creative pursuit, isn't a cookie cutter process. Some projects bend to my will and my process; others resist, taking more time than I allotted. Non-fiction proposals need to be reshaped and rearranged to meet the needs of different publishers. When I'm working on fiction, my characters sometimes refuse to talk to me or fail to reveal enough of themselves to give me the foundation for a solid story. 

Side note: this was never the case with Marita, Angel, Charli and Bets. They spoiled me.

But it has been the case with my latest work-in-progress. I'd first sketched the novel out a couple of years ago, only to set it aside as other projects -- projects with paychecks and deadlines -- popped up. Then, when it came time to find the notes I'd carefully filed away, they were nowhere to be found. This is very unusual for me; I frequently set something down and have to retrace my steps to find it but this folder has gone missing. Completely.

So I went back to the drawing board. And still she resisted. (Maybe she was mad at me for misplacing that file). I knew she was a private person, but this was getting ridiculous. 

steve_a_johnson via Pixabay

It wasn't until I was at the beach with my family earlier this summer that she began to re-emerge. I did worksheet after worksheet -- not my usual approach -- until finally her friends gave her away. A tenuous story began to take shape.

And I was ready to write. Once that happens, the "when" is often my biggest obstacle but, sometimes, the "how" becomes an issue as well. One chapter flies by, another leaves me staring into space, looking for inspiration in unlikely places and trying to do research without going down the hyperlink rabbit hole. Type/delete/type some more/check a word or spelling and keep typing until I run out of words. 

And then do it again another day.

Once something I'm not totally ashamed of materializes, I share it with my critique group. Their comments play a role in the "how" too, and their questions sometimes leave me with a different "how."  How will I close a loophole, fix an engineering problem, up the ante?

And I'm back to my computer again. 

How do I write? 

However my characters tell me to.