A.Word.A.Day -- AWADmail Issue 1006

Technical Writers -- We misunderstand your instructions so your customers won’t!
-Dion Gladish, Glendale, Ohio (dgladish aol.com)

I found, having written many freelance articles and a non-fiction book, that one doesn’t write so much as re-write. It’s all in the editing, polishing, re-writing -- and doing that over and over up until the deadline. It never comes out right the first time.
-Charles Koppelman, Producer/Director, Berkeley, California (koppelm well.com)

Henry Geiger, editor of the weekly journal Manas, had to say on this subject: Never ask a writer what he is doing staring at the wall. That is when he gets his work done.
-T.S. Ananthu, Beas, India (jyotiananthu gmail.com)

I’m an actor, director, and playwright who mostly specializes in performing one-man plays. When asked, I tell people that “I turn ideas into words and words into performances.”
-Tim Mooney, Timothy Mooney Repertory Theatre, Arlington Heights, Illinois (timmooneyrep gmail.com)

How “writing happens” is what I call “unconscious simmer”. It applies to the inspiration needed for art as well. Most of my best watercolor paintings are a result of that process. Facing a blank piece of paper, whether for writing or painting, is a non-starter. I always try to wait for that creative revelation to occur.
-Hope Bucher, Naperville, Illinois (hopebucher gmail.com)

You describe writing as all the thought processes that go on prior to putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). As someone who has been a writer (in a small way) for 50+ years and a software developer (in a big way) for a similar time, I can vouch for the fact that programming work is much the same as writing work, much the same as what you described. Depending on the project, a programmer can be an outliner or a “pantser”, i.e., create a plan to follow or just start out with an idea and wing it. In either case, a lot of the work is done while engaged in other physical activities. Then, once a first draft is done, the script must be edited/debugged, revised and reviewed until it is ready to publish/release. The processes are extremely analogous. I love doing both. The challenge in programming is the rules and tools keep changing. In writing it would be somewhat like every two years you had to start using verbs or nouns in a different language. Not only do verbs and nouns change but so does the syntax.
-David Studebaker, Ellison Bay, Wisconsin (das42dc gmail.com)

My one-liner when asked what I do is: “I help people get out of their own way.” We like to claim we’re waiting on someone else, but all too often we’re actually waiting on ourselves to do the next right thing.
-Ray Raymond N. Baker, Lt. Col USAF (Ret), Executive Director, Patriots In Recovery Living (PIRL), Master Black Belt Lean Six Sigma, Improving Alaska LLC, HHBC Celebrate Recovery Training Coach, Edmond, Oklahoma (RaybakerLc gmail.com)

As the author of four books, I have a lot of experience “working” at writing. Many of my organizing ideas come to me at night, not when I fall asleep but when I wake at midnight and ponder. The worry is whether I’ll remember because I don’t take notes at night.
-Reiner Decher, Prof. Emeritus, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (reiner54 gmail.com)

Truer words have never been spoken. As you get older and the longing for fame and fortune gets discarded as the illusion it is and you don’t need to make a living anymore, I also find that the urge to get the “writing” out of your head becomes less and less compelling, which inspired someone (I forget who, maybe a character in a novel) to say that the best books have never been written.
In the same vein, Paul Meurisse, a French actor of the '60s, loved photography. When he’d taken all the shots on a film, he’d pull it out of the camera and dump it in a bin. President Jacques Chirac loved campaigning. Once elected, he found little interest in the job and Clemenceau is remembered for the quip: “In love, the best moment is when you climb the staircase.” Achievement will never trump fantasy (which is why dreams have such a good reputation :o)
-Pascal Pagnoux, Saint Gaudens, France (pascal.pagnoux gmail.com)

What works for me is to turn off the TV, and without any music playing from my stereo, just sitting in total, quiet solitude -- usually in the early evenings -- when the only sound, on a warm summer night, is the crickets chirping, allowing my thoughts to come up by themselves, without interference or stimulation from other noise. And then I write them down as quickly as possible, or dictate them into my iPhone for further review, and editing if necessary, the next day.
-Don Kellogg, Novato, California (kelloggphoto yahoo.com)

I think the biggest misconception about writing is that there is one good way to write. Writing styles are even more different than hair styles. The “just dump it all on the page” style that you describe is impossible for me; I type as I think and think as I type. I recommend Helen Sword’s Air & Light & Time & Space. She interviews a bunch of successful (academic) writers and finds a huge diversity of approaches.
-Tobias I. Baskin, Amherst, Massachusetts (baskin bio.umass.edu)