So over at Seven Imps, Jules posts:
At the Southern Festival of Books a couple weeks ago here in Nashville, I heard author/illustrator/novelist Rosemary Wells speak briefly. She said — and I quote this exactly — "process doesn't exist. Any good writer will tell you that." What say you, authors?
Now, you may find my response shocking, what with the process questions and the write porn around these parts and all. But here's what I said over there in the comments:
Oh, I definitely agree with her! The reason I’m so fascinated to "talk process" is because I think it's all lies — seriously, I think we all make up our processes as we go along, and that we probably aren't even right about what we think they are. Plus, there's the not wanting to embarrass one's self when discussing such things. I mean, honestly, so much of it is just thinking, wandering around, taking things in and reforming them into something else. Life is the real process, right?
Still, sometimes what we perceive as the process of creating any given thing can be illuminating, and it's always an interesting procrastination tool.
I suspect process is just another story we tell ourselves. Thoughts?
Now back to the actual process of TYPING.
Updated: Okay, so I was a bit flip yesterday -- I didn't actually mean it's all lies. And, besides, note the probably(s) and things in there. Sometimes I forget that this is not actually a window into my brain and so if I don't frame the whole thing, there is no context. Here's a bit of a clarification from the comments, which only convinces me I should have made this the longer, more fleshed out post about process I've been wanting to do:
Oh, I'm definitely _not_ saying that none of it can be described, that the _entire_ way we say we work is a fiction. That's not it at all. And I'm using process in the (yucky arty term alert) "creative process," sense, which is larger than habit.
What I'm saying, I suppose, is that the magic is _part_ of the process, and so we can only describe the most mundane aspects of it? So someone saying they sit down for two hours every day and write for 500 words describes something (and definitely captures _part_ of the process), an action that either happens or doesn't, but it doesn't say anything about the rest. Or about the six months in which not a word was written immediately before that. :)
And, Dave, yes, yes -- all I'm saying is that most quantifications of this stuff are missing a lot at best. For instance, if you answer a question for me about your process today, you give me an answer and it's "true." But how about when your biographers dig that out fifty years from now -- was that your process? Because often what a writer said at one certain time gets reprinted a million times and this one's a moving target for most of us, I suspect.
We want to be more in control of it than we are.
And I will add that the big revelation in terms of my own "process" this year was the discovery that I basically have to write every section of my novel about four times, to get anywhere approaching something I'm happy enough with to move on to the next bit. Honestly, the four times thing is probably inaccurate, but it feels right, to Dave's point below. (And the flip one I was making yesterday.) At any rate, the reason why this was a big revelation is that it staves off the utter despair that comes during the third revision, when the chapters still aren't right and I don't know why. The next novel will probably be entirely different.
