Five years ago this week, author Erik Deckers invited me to guest-post on his blog. "Birds Sing from the Heart" was the result, one that still holds up years later. Here it is in its entirety.
Erik recently invited me to discuss “My Writing Process,” a dead-horse topic if there ever were one.
But I’ll beat that horse anyway, just because Erik asked.
Here you go:
Where I find ideas. The wellsprings of ideas are many and inexhaustible. The ones I return to again and again are:
- Other writers—from the sublime (e.g., Emerson, Faulkner, Sartre, Updike) to the ridiculous (names withheld)
- Pop culture (songs, movies, TV shows, blogs, etc.)
- Current events (AKA La Comédie humaine)
- Memories, dreams, reflections
- Other people’s observations (my wife’s, in particular)
How I assure quality. Copy’s never error free, but I try hard to check my facts. In fact, I often spend more time fact-checking sources than writing and editing. (Don’t hem and haw: fact-checking is enlightening.) And I proofread, both twice before I hit publish and twice afterwards. Boring task, but my reputation’s on the line.
How I spread ideas. Outposting has helped aggrandize my scribblings more than any of my other activities. Adman Gary Slack advises clients to invest in “other people’s audiences” more than their own. He’s 100% on the money.
For more advice about writing. If you’re hungry for sound advice, listen to Paul Simon and Chuck Close discuss the creative process in a podcast for The Atlantic. You’ll learn more than you will by reading 50 how-to books, with these four noteworthy exceptions:
- The Art and Craft of Feature Writing by William E. Blunder
- On the Art of Writing Copy by Herschel Gordon Lewis
- Secrets of a Freelance Writer by Bob Bly
- Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark
Above: Little Bird by Jose Trujillo. Oil on canvas. 14 x 14 inches.