The Writers Journey

 

The Writers Journey

Here is how it goes. After one hour of procrastination, I pull up the manuscript and check where I left off. I read my notes about what I want to achieve. I am generally a "Pantser" when it comes to writing until I get to the middle; then, I become almost a "Plotter." Time to look at pets up for adoption. Or do the elliptical? No! It is writing time. Focus. Where did I leave off? I finish my glass of wine and make some tea. 

Many people think that when you write, you simply sit down, and everything comes out perfect. This is not true. We would like it to be true, but it isn't. I can honestly say I have spent the past three weeks rewriting the chapter I am in. First, I reviewed what I had written and checked it for continuity. Were all the characters there? Was the setting correct? Whose point of view was I in? For this chapter, I changed the point of view six times. I had it in Jim's, changed it to Shelly's, changed it to Sam's, changed it back to Shelly's, back to Sam's, and finally returned to Jim's point of view. I am sticking with Jim. Once I got the point of view down, I needed to add atmosphere and emotion. This is a scary chapter but also an in-between chapter. It is a build-up to the final confrontation scene. I need my characters (and my readers) on edge. They need to be wondering what is going on. Tension needs to be high. I redid the scene until it felt right. Then, I went through it again. I needed emotion. How does my character feel? What are the physical signs of anxiety? Fear? How could I describe this so that my reader would also feel it? Then ... I went through it again. And again. Finally, I felt I had it right and was ready to start the next chapter.

But ... Courtesy of the Panster side of me saying, "Hey, what if this happened." I'd thrown a new wrinkle into the situation. Now, I needed to figure out how it worked with the plot. I wrote out ideas. I went for a walk and thought out ideas. I went to work and toyed with ideas, finally, after three nights of barely making it past one paragraph, the words started to flow, and I laid out the bones of the chapter. 

"Hemingway once said that ‘there is nothing to writing, you just sit down at a typewriter and bleed.’ What Hemingway failed to mention is that bleeding is the easy part. To cut is what makes writing hard. Sitting down to write and hitting that first key or touching the tip of your pen to that blank sheet of paper - that’s the hard part. Once you start - once you spill that first bit of ink and let it bleed into the page, the rest takes care of itself. There’s nothing to it. You just sit there and bleed until it stops. It is not for this reason, but it’s still interesting and worth mentioning that the word ‘write’ comes from the Proto-Germanic word ‘writan,’ which literally meant to scratch, tear, or cut.”

― Sean Norris, Heaven and Hurricanes

Writing, like art and music, is a labor of love. When you create something, you devote time, energy, passion, and dreams into it. You breathe life into it. You do your best to make it shine. You can't create half-assed. Who would want to read that? No ... you lay out the bones, add the nerves, the muscle, the flesh, the heartbeat, and the right coloring, and bring it to life. Then, you take this creation and send it out into the world. 

This is the journey. As a writer, I can only hope when you read my words, my books, and my stories that, for one moment, you were transported, and you lived the story.