Writing is solitary. We enter the world, look around, and something grabs hold of us, demands that we tell its story. We sit, and we write. We read what we wrote, we write some more. Sometimes, we think we have reached perfection, or near to it, other times we think that the story, the way we are writing it, the way we are telling it, is not coming to life. So, we read books, we go on-line, and we try to do better.
I learn in bursts. My grasp of the craft is not incremental, it’s stepwise. I learn best by spending time with my work, reading it, asking questions about it. I’m very satisfied with where my current project is headed, I see what it will be, I see how to make it that way. What I did not see was the beginning, where it began. I have learned over the last two weeks that I was attacking it in the wrong way, but I will save that post for another day.
Writing is solitary.
But, it is only after my last round of brainstorming with my writing group that my opening is finally manifesting in my mind — it’s coming to life. Without that discussion, the volleying of ideas, the bantering, the rebuttals, the encouragement, I would still be reading a scene that didn’t do what I wanted it to do. Now, I am letting my subconscious build. It sends me reflections that I mold and manipulate, and then send back down for another round, until it will be ready for me to put down on paper.
Writing is solitary, but thank goodness I don’t have to do it alone.
