What Is Writing?

I'm sitting in front of my laptop when I hear a knock on my door. Before I can swivel around to see who it is, my wife pushes through and casually steps inside, all smiles and white teeth.
"Hi, honey," she says. "Whatcha doing?"
"I'm writing."
"Oh..."
Her smile fades and now I feel kind of bad. We haven't seen each other much all day and I know she probably just misses me. On the other hand, she knows how limited my writing time is in the evenings and understands my tendency towards feeling protective.
She scrunches her face into a grimace as if she's just stepped on a nail, then she mouths an apology. "Sorry..."
There's a long awkward pause and neither of us really knows what to say next. I don't really want to kick her out and, at the same time, I know she doesn't really want to interrupt my writing.
Just as I open my mouth to say something, she leans to one side and glances over my shoulder at the picture of the German Shepherd up on my browser screen.
She raises her eyebrows and looks over at me. Her smile is back up again, but this time it's slanted into a suspicious grin. "Looks more to me like you're just surfing the Internet."

How do you explain to someone who isn't a writer that there's more to creating a story than just banging away on a keyboard? Admittedly, I used to be one of those people. I just figured that authors were some creatively gifted sub-species of the population who sat down at their typewriters (personal computers didn't exist when I was a kid) and cranked out one best seller right after the other. Then they stacked all their printed pages neatly in a bundle and mailed them (no email back then either!) off to their publisher, who promptly mailed them all checks (and no Paypal!) for millions of dollars.

Wouldn't that be so nice?

If one could generalize and divide up the story-writing process into pie pieces, I'd say the actual writing part would get a fairly small slice. Granted, it's probably the most time-consuming slice, but it's definitely not the most important. In fact, it's probably the least important and most tediously boring slice.

From my own experience, the process of "writing" is actually comprised of several different activities. When I tell my family that I'm heading off to "write" for a while, it doesn't always mean that I'll be banging away the next several hours all on my keyboard.

Here are the top ten activities that I would lump into the process of "writing":

1. Brainstorming 3% - This is where I think about which characters, places, and events I want to include in my story. To minimize the amount of time I have to spend here, I keep a growing collection of story ideas, little notes of stuff I think are interesting. When it's time to write a story, it's like going grocery shopping -- I grab an interesting character from here and a cool location from there and drop in a carton or two of fascinating plots points until my cart is full and I'm ready to check out.
2. Researching 10% - Writing is all about creating the illusion of participation. In order to make that illusion seem as realistic as possible, you gotta know what you're talking about and you MUST get the details right! So I spend a good amount of time researching, which often includes finding pictures of the people, places, and things in my story (which is why I needed the German Shepherd picture).
3. World Building 17% - I like to spend lots of time up front fleshing out the worlds and characters I'm writing about. Giving my people and locations rich histories and unusual characteristics makes them feel more alive and memorable. Our histories and experiences have made us who we are and I want my characters to be motivated by strong desires and ambitious goals.
4. Sketching 10% - At this point I take all of my ideas and begin to assemble a basic plot. If I don't already have an ending in mind, I'll try and develop at least a rough idea of how I want things to be resolved by the time the story is over. I'll also give some thought to character arcs, basic conflicts, and turning points.
5. Outlining 10% - Using my sketch as a guide, I'll begin drafting scene descriptions. Most of these are usually just one or two short sentences to quickly describe how each scene might begin and end. I might also think of cool dialogue ideas I want to include.
6. Fleshing 15% - The outline develops further as I fill in missing segments and ensure a smooth transition from scene to scene. I want to make sure my story has a nice flow to it. I begin to think more seriously about pacing and the overall story arc or themes I want to achieve.
7. Drafting 10% - This is where all of the details get filled in. My outline has been all fleshed out now, so I can take that information and fill in all the cracks and gaps. I often think writing the first draft is like being a stone mason.  All of my different bricks are laid out in neat rows and now they have to be cemented together and built into a great tower.
8. Revising 20% - This often feels like an endless loop of reading & changing, reading & changing, reading & changing...But it's important to make sure that what you've written matches up with what you intended. I usually find that I can add a lot more depth to my characters and situations during this period because I've been thinking about them nearly constantly for a long time now. This is also where I let my alpha and beta readers review and critique my stories.
9. Polishing 3% - Cleaning up any last minute changes for grammar, spelling, and final formatting before sending the manuscript off to find a home.
10. Submitting 2% - I keep a list of SFWA-approved markets and look for the ones I think will be the best match for my story. When one market rejects it, I route it to the next and the next and the next. If it goes through several and no one seems to be interested, I'll sometimes pull the piece and try and figure out what might be wrong with it through another round of revisions.

In addition to all these activities, the process of writing also includes things like reading (both for pleasure and for studying craft), attending conventions and workshops, participating in writing groups, studying up on market and audience trends, people-watching (one of my favorite activities)...the list can be endless.

People are sometimes amazed how much more is involved in the business of writing than simply sitting down and "writing". So don't judge too harshly the next time you see your writer companion engaging in activities that look like goofing off. It's entirely possible that he really is writing. Unless of course his "writing" involves video games or Facebook. Then he probably really is just goofing off.

Being Happy with Rejection

I recently received a rejection letter from a well-respected science fiction magazine. It's a professional magazine and the story was one of many that I've sent out over the last year. 

The unread email from the magazine editor just sat there in my Inbox, waiting for me to click on it. I didn't have to open it, though. The entire message was short enough that it fit inside the narrow preview pane:

"Thank you for offering your story to [us]. We're sorry to tell you that we will not be using it; you are free to submit it elsewhere."

I read the message a few times, each time expecting myself to slip over the edge into some pit of disappointment, where I would sit in darkness for days and wonder why I bother to continue writing. I expected to feel depressed that no one was interested in publishing my stories yet. I didn't feel any of those things though.

I was instead surprised to find myself feeling happy, which didn't make a whole lot of sense to me until after I thought about it for a couple of days. I finally concluded that there were a few good reasons why I  simply couldn't feel upset or disappointed or angry because of the rejection.

First, I had heard back from the magazine much sooner than expected based on what their website listed as their average response time. I took this as an encouraging sign and was able to successfully convince myself it was because they had been so excited to read my story. (Note: If you're a member of the magazine's editing staff and you happen to be reading this, please don't write me to correct my misguided delusion!)

Second, I was grateful for their reminder that I had another chance to try again. "You are free to submit it elsewhere." In fact, my first reaction was to open up the story and try to look at it more objectively, try to see it through the eyes of the editor. Sure enough, there were several changes that I needed to make. I took a day to rewrite sections of the story that didn't quite work the way I had intended, then attached it to another email and sent it off to the next editor on my list.

Third, a rejection to me is still a success. I've worked with writers who simply couldn't handle rejection very well at all (or writing critiques for that matter). They simply took them too personally. Not surprisingly, many of those people are no longer writing. They just became too discouraged and gave up. One easy way to avoid being rejected is to never send your stories out to editors. Of course, that's also a really good way to insure that you never get published. The fact that I've received lots of rejections and that I'm still writing and getting better tells me I must be doing something right.

Anyone who is serious about writing is going to face a lot of rejections. Even after you've "made it", not everyone is going to like every story you write. Not all of your stories will even be publishable. Stephen King and J.K. Rowling still get rejected. Writing is a business filled with taking chances. That's one of the things I love so much about this job. I'm taking chances on myself and my abilities. Of course, that also means I have to accept responsibility for my work and I can't blame anyone else when I fail.

This certainly wasn't my first rejection letter and I know it won't be my last, so what did I do with it? I simply printed it off and added it to my growing collection of rejections that sit in a pile on top of my writing desk. I'm proud of my rejection letters. I collect them like soldiers collect battle scars, small wounds that hurt a lot when I first got them, but which have now toughened over and given me a thicker skin.

So that's probably why I couldn't be upset about the rejection, no matter how hard I tried. Instead of seeing it as a failure, I saw it as an opportunity to get better. I also saw it as a form of success: I had created something special and had the guts to send it out into the world. It's okay that it came back. I'll probably end up making several more changes. Each time I'll send it back out until it eventually flies on its own. And if it never does, that's okay too because there's lots more where that came from and next time will be even better.