Clearly I don't know what I'm doing.

Literally.

I know that, since, for a while now I have, out of curiosity, been reading posts and watching YouTube videos instructing aspiring writers on how to write novels. And I must admit, I don't recognize the process. What the hell am I doing? 

Their approach to the writing of a novel involves so many considerations, so many moving parts, and processes, that it makes my head hurt. It seems you need to construct a story out of hundreds of components and considerations, all aimed at snaring the "reader" and keeping them reading. You must hook'em right from the beginning to get them into the book, and keep the action flowing to keep'em reading, chapter after chapter. To do so, you build your story on proven structures using standard patterns, large and small, including, the expected tropes and story beats in order to serve reader expectations. Your characters must have their own distinct voices, vices, and each, their own character arc showing that they are different at the end of the story from who they were at the beginning. Dialog must be snappy, but authentic, but neither too much, nor too little. Show, don't tell. Everything must then fit together seamlessly into a carefully crafted consumer product designed for a specific audience. 

Phew.

They suggest that every element in the story should be based on a standard, proven blueprint. The process treats writing as product design, not art. Which, I suppose, makes sense for most writers, since most authors write their books to sell them. Books are, after all a product. So it makes sense to construct their "story" to meet the current, sales-proven standards of the day. It makes writing books a customer-driven rather than author-driven process, creativity harnessed as a carthorse, pulling a heavy load. With no guarantee of any bag of oats at the end of the day.

No wonder I often hear that writing novels is hard, grueling, and thankless work. No wonder there seems to be so much angst involved in writing novels. Writing is a demanding job, with little real hope of it paying off for the vast majority of aspiring writers. No wonder writers drink.

What is not mentioned is talent. It would seem that talent is unnecessary, if one just follows the blueprint they set out.

I, however, believe in talent. I believe talent is a necessary ingredient in storytelling and in writing. Without it, or with very little of it, writing would be dreary, uninspired work.

Maybe my belief is old fashioned. I've held it all my life, after all. Back, after the dinosaurs had died out, people had moved out of the caves to the 'burbs, and I had just finished my freshman year in college, I decided that journalism wasn't for me. I had originally chosen journalism for my major because I wanted to learn to write, not how to read, as one does when majoring in English. But I felt I could give up journalism and still learn to write, because I believed in talent. I felt that if you have it, you have it. It only needs to be developed. And you could do that all on your own by observation, practice, and self-evaluation. So I changed my major to international relations, and trusted that if I had the talent to be a writer, I could learn to be a writer all on my own.  

Along with this belief in talent, I approach writing as art; an unique creation of an individual. Art is Art. Commerce is Commerce. And sure, art can be turned into a product, and art can be a ensemble creation of many people; published books being an example of that. But the heart of writing, of storytelling, I believe is art, art for the sake of creation, for bringing something a little new to life. And for this, talent is the key ingredient. 

This view of writing as art, art as an expression of talent, informs my approach to writing. For me storytelling feels organic. I dream up a world, and a premise that I can use to explore facets of that world, alongside characters who are gently propelled through the world by that premise to a natural end of one story. What happens along the way comes about organically - realistically - from their actions driven by the premise, but without a design or structure imposed on the actions. What happens, happens because of what happened before it. One step at a a time. And what can happen is what I find interesting to think and write about. My focus is on my characters, my world, and my amusement. Readers play no part of my vision. I know that if I enjoy my story, there will be others who will as well. My novels are, at best, only tangentially, a product. And only after the story is completed.

Given my organic approach to writing, allowing my story grow as it goes along, you can see why I find the art of writing reduced to an artificial construction, built according to a blueprint by apparently anyone who can follow directions, actually rather creepy. It is the opposite of my approach. But in view of this approach, I can easily understand why so many authors, aspiring and otherwise, find writing a novel so hard. Between having to fit every element of their creation, their story, into some sort of standard mold to meet some sort of standard expectation with an impatience to reach a desired destination, and perhaps a destination beyond their talent, or reached only by a long journey, the process of writing can be an exhausting exercise in frustration. 

Writing for me is organic, so natural that the process is instinctive. I truly don't know exactly how I do it, but I credit it to having a talent to write. A talent that I have developed over a lifetime. I have no interest in trying to disassemble it. It is what it is and I'm content to leave it a mystery.

In short, I don't know what I'm doing. But I'm doing it. And having fun doing it.

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