This week I’ve got some writing to do, and with any luck a big announcement regarding Argo Navis Publishing. But right now the main thing I am concentrating on is the writing.
I got very little done last week. Well, very little physical writing, but as I mentioned in a recent post I was working through the mental stages of this next scene. I want to talk a little more about that now if you don’t mind.
I know quite a few writers and I always pick their brains or watch how they write and then adapt their methods to mine. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but the end result is the same: a finished story. It’s still funny, though, after all these years. I and many other writers take so many different paths and yet we reach the same goal.
When I write I make conscious and unconscious decisions about the story all the time. I guess everyone does. But I got to thinking about this. Sometimes when I write a story I do wrestle with it even if I don’t have a complete comprehension of what the story or the scene is about. And sometimes I step back and try to reason it out. But what is the balance point that makes me take one path as opposed to another? I can’t pin that down.
All I can go on is instinct. I am a big believer in my instinct when it comes to writing. If something feels wrong to me about a story I take note. I don’t push through that. I want to understand why it’s wrong. I suppose this is a holdover from my past as a physics graduate and science teacher. I am not trained to push through a problem and pretend it isn’t there. I want the understanding. I want the knowledge. I want the comprehension.
But having said all that I know enough about this profession to understand writing is many things, but it’s not a science. Maybe if it were it would be easier because there would be a protocol we could all follow. It’s more like a process, and an inchoate one at that. At least it is for me. I can’t speak for other writers, only myself. But this is how it feels to me. This is what works for me.
Okay, that’s enough for today. Talk is cheap. Writing is hard. When you come right down to it, I guess that’s the biggest lesson we can ever take away from this job. 🙂
Hoover's Corner 
I know what you mean: I as a physics major in college for two years before winning w riting competition and changing to English as a major. In subsequent decades, I have worked a great deal with highly technical applications of the English language, including writing software. I now find that writing as a daily form of breathing is liberating me from having to know THE answer at any given moment in time but to celebrate the ongoing revelations each hour brings.
Yes, it’s always a learning cycle whenever I write. I always find out more about myself with each and every story I work on.
If writing were a science, it would be predictable, boring, and easy.
Writing is hard, though, but it’s so worth while!
I’m looking forward to reading more of your blog in the future, you’ve already got me hooked with one post!
Thank you very much for your kind words. I am really happy you liked the post, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the blog, too. 🙂