The Creative Process can be a Magical and Mystical Journey!

For most people who are not writers, authoring something may seem like a pretty straightforward endeavor.

You have an idea, so you sit down and write it out, then you publish it and sell it. The End.

There are — perhaps — a tiny handful of writers on the planet for whom it is that simple. Often they are seasoned published authors who are starting their 34th book... and the entire process is pretty "old hat" to them.

For most writers — and particularly those laboring over their first manuscript — the process of writing is more like giving birth. Strike that... it's more like the entire relationship process, from meeting someone, to forming a relationship, to falling in love, to eventually (perhaps!) giving birth.

In many cases, writing a book is about a lot more than just "writing a book."

It becomes a journey of creativity and self-discovery that often takes years. For example, a recent client I worked with spent the better part of twenty years getting from the point of having the original idea to being ready for publication. 

We are often hard on ourselves because we feel like it's a personal failing that we "can't just sit down and distill our idea into a finished manuscript in 90 days."

After all, we meet all sorts of other project deadlines in our lives, all the time. 

Right?

But that's rarely how the creative process works. And I say that, both as a writer, and as an artist. Creativity ebbs and flows, and when we're not feeling creatively inspired, chances are we wouldn't be happy with the outcome, if we were to try to force ourselves.

Besides, we would miss out on the magical and mystical moments of insight and self-discovery that often goes hand-in-hand with the creative process.

So, why not just let your creativity flow at its own natural pace? Sometimes that pace might be three weeks of frenetic activity followed by five months of dormancy — but that's really OK, too!

Thanks for reading, and remember to enjoy the process!

Making You Look as Good as Possible!

A friend of mine had been playing around with the idea of writing a book of his life experiences living in various parts of Asia in the 1980's and 90's.

He came to me with some notes and asked "What exactly does an editor DO?"

Of course, there are plenty of excellent definitions — most of them quite long winded — of what book and manuscript editors do.

But that wasn't the sort of answer he was looking for.

Eventually, the "Elevator Speech" version I came up with goes like this:

"I take your ideas, your words and your voice and make you look as good as I possibly can!"

And that's pretty much what it amounts to.

Whether you bring me scribbles on a napkin or a nearly perfect first draft, my job is to make you look as good as possible. And it's really our job, as we will work together to do this!

I realize that it's also why I enjoy working with authors from highly creative or spiritual fields, where the primary objective is to convey an idea and essence, rather than just go through an exercise in "mechanical accuracy."