When Does It Count As Writing?

"I feel like a poser." 

This came from a friend who is an aspiring author, who's so far had a very difficult time finishing something she's been working on. She's a good writer --imaginative, careful, determined to learn her craft -- and she'll get there, but someone recently told her that unless she sat down every day and wrote a certain amount of words every day she was never going to get published and she wasn't ever going to be a real writer.

So I suppose I am not a real writer, either. At least by that hack definition, that is. Like everybody else, I've been up to a few other things for a while. I've attended weddings, helped one kid lease a car and another get into college. I've sent out one book proposal and one follow-up query letter. I've helped my husband ship out books and volunteered at a health fair (where I lost a kid, but don't worry -- they found him). I celebrated International Turtle Day (May 24) and July Fourth, and done all of the other crap that comes with being the person who works at home.


I did not sit down at my keyboard and write a pre-determined amount of words every day. I did write, but I tend not to be able to force out words on a daily schedule. I tend to mull, research, talk out dialogue, hash out scenes with my husband or with another writer or two, put things down on sticky notes or on my nook or index cards (but not on white board, ever since the stomping puppy debacle). I hear I also stare into space a lot. Then I sit and write about 4 or 5 thousand words at that sitting. In between editing assignments. And they have to be good assignments, since I'm absorptive -- if I'm reading badly done romance I will spout out badly done whatever-I'm-working-on.

What happens to white board plot notes when there's a toddler with fur in the house.

Recently a writer friend said she always expected her first draft to be terrible. That works for her.

I once heard Anna Quindlen tell an audience, at a Random House open house, that she sometimes just thought about a book for ten months before she put a word of it to paper. That works for her.

Someone else I know says she writes a certain number of pages every day, with the goal of having a book in six months, based upon her page count.

Some people do NaNoRiMo, which  -- wow, a book in a month. That takes my breath away. But that works for them.

Some people write right through a manuscript indicating where they'll figure out the details later, and some do their research and get their facts straight as they go. Some people need to do their research ahead of time.

The point of this is that it's a process. Writing is Discovery, Invention, Planning, Researching, Drafting, Talking to Yourself, Talking with Others, Journaling, Assembly, THINKING, Typing, Scrawling, Reading, Wondering What the Point Of It All Is, Seeking Depth, Seeking More Depth, Editing, Re-writing, Seeking Even More Depth, Deleting, Inserting, Crumpling Up What Doesn't Work and Yelling "Aha!" When It Does. Writing is having that little idea come from something as simple as a picture in the paper or pulling up a weed or nearly having a car accident or inadvertantly eavesdropping at a restaurant -- taking the inspiration where you find it and turning it into something cohesive and compelling that gives others pleasure or makes them think and feel.

It's a process. And that process is determined by the person doing the work. Having a similar goal to others in your profession doesn't mean you all take the exact same path to get there.

I told my non-poser friend if she wanted me to, I'd lure her judgmental frenemy into a dark alley and give her a talking to. Then I told her to get back to work.

What's your process?