It's all in the words

Every writer I know has trouble writing.  ~Joseph Heller

Here it is nearly midnight on Thanksgiving night and I have all sorts of ideas about writing that are swirling in my mind like wind-swept fog, but that bloody blinking cursor has his arms crossed, and he's tapping his foot, waiting. Blink … Blink … Blink.

Earlier this week, Michael and John wrote about the perennial question writers hear, "Where do you get your ideas?"  I have come to the conclusion that most of the time the people who ask that are not really inquiring about the origin of ideas.  The real question is one they are asking themselves.  They want to know, "Could I do that?  Could I write a book?"  They are asking to see if this writer's method for discovering new ideas is something within their grasp.  They think that writing a book is all about getting a great idea.

So, I am here to tell you that it's not even about ideas.  Writing a book is extremely hard work, but getting an idea for one — that's easy.  I have ideas every day.  I have more ideas for books than I will ever get written.  Think of your average writers' conference; everyone there has an idea for a book. Many of them aren't yet finished, but they got the ideas for their books.  No, it's not about the ideas — it's about getting it down — it's about  the words.

John Urban provided us with that lovely quote from Stephen King, something about how we need to recognize these ideas that come sailing at us out of an empty sky.  So often, we don't know what we think until we put it into words.  We don't recognize an idea until we get it written down.  And writing it down is the hardest part.

There are many days I sit there staring at that damn blinking cursor unable to string together enough words to make a sentence.  I have this great idea for this book — but I don't know what this character is going to say next or who is knocking on that door.  And I won't be able to find out until I can write my way into it and force myself to tell that story, to write that scene.  And in order to know it, I must remember what I wrote yesterday, and the day before, and the day before.

Knowing and remembering all the little details that make up this fictional world I'm creating is hard mental work.  Every day when any writer sits down to write fiction, he or she must conjure up all those characters with their own unique voices and all those places, those worlds they all inhabit.  The first hour of my writing time is the most difficult because I must overcome my innate inertia and reconstruct this imaginary universe.  After an hour or so, I'm there in the scene and my characters are starting to talk to one another.  If I can stay focused and suspend reality long enough, I might be able to get enough words down to make my ideas recognizable.

Is writing really that much trouble?  For me, yes.  So why do it?  Is it for all that fantastic financial reward?  Now, that does make me laugh.  No, I believe in what Sinclair Lewis is saying below.

It is impossible to discourage the real writers – they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.  ~Sinclair Lewis

Fair winds!

Christine