"What is your writing process like?" "How do you make time to write?" "What does your office/writing space look like?"

Familiar questions, aren't they? You frequently see them in author interviews; they crop up on writers' lists like clockwork and you overhear them whenever several writers get together. On the surface, these questions seem like normal conversation. But let's look a little deeper.

These very questions came up one evening when a group of writing friends go together. It occurred to me, as I listened to the conversation, that, in asking the questions, what we were really looking for was validation. Am I doing this right? Am I wrong to insist my family leave me alone for hours on end? Am I considered weird because I really do hear my characters' voices?* Maybe the reason I haven't sold yet is because my office is too neat/messy/bright/dark/warm/cold. Maybe the music I listen to isn't evocative enough. Maybe the lyrics interfere with my words.

Maybe I need to find my own peace.

We want to belong, to know that we're normal, that we're doing it right. This is human nature. Some people take that to mean we have to do everything like everyone else. If Abigail Author got published by doing thus-and-such, then that must be the way to do it. We have to learn the rules and abide by them. If we stray outside of the boundaries, we are doomed. If we don't use Courier, no editor will ever look at the manuscript. If we do everything just right, just like…

The editor may still not look at the manuscript. Because it is just like everything else.

We are individuals. It is the uniqueness of ourselves that will give our writing wings. But only if we allow it to shine in our stories. When a writer loses sight of this, the magic is gone, the life drains from the words and the story just lays there. Flat. Lifeless. Unread.

There are no hard and fast rules, no guarantees and certainly no formula to success. It doesn't really matter how something is done, or in what setting. It only matters that the story is told, as only you can tell it, in all its glory.

*The answers, by the way, are: Yes, whatever way you're doing it, if it works for you, it's the right way. Maybe, if your relationship with your family is suffering. No. Well, okay, yes. But only by non-writers who generally then give you plenty of space. Which isn't all bad.

Copy Write 2002 Rosemary Heim