Every writer’s process is different, but the answer to why someone writes is a constant: because I have to, it’s what I do. I started knowing I was a writer by the time I was eight years old. I’ve tried various genres. I have taken classes and gotten degrees in writing. And I’ve tried over and over to figure out a writing routine that consistently works for me. My greatest challenge these days is finding the time to write and then being in the head space to do it once I’ve got the time.

Two weeks ago, I got both. I went out three nights, more times than I’ve been out in a week since my son was born almost three years ago. Tuesday night I saw Wicked the Musical, Thursday I went out for my monthly mama happy hour/dinner to eat Ethiopian food (which I discovered I do not like, by the way), and on Saturday I saw Flush, a new production by Arial Dance Theatre. Maybe it was that I got so many hours out of the house to be something other than a mom, or maybe it was that I saw acting, singing, dance, and it woke up my inner artist. Whatever it was, I finished the week inspired.

I couldn’t just sit and watch Flush. I kept pulling out my notebook to write down my experience of the performance. Where am I supposed to look? I feel anxious. They want me to. They chose this music, this video, the dancers’ movements specifically to make me feel this way. The dancers were in the center of the room with three rows on either side so the audience was facing each other. Part of the experience of viewing the show was periodically noticing how other people were reacting to watching the same thing I was watching. Eventually I began thinking about the process of making and performing the work. What translates? What did the writer intend? Is the audience getting it? If audience members discussed the piece afterward, how much would anyone actually remember? Would they agree in their interpretations? Does it matter if what they’re experiencing is what the author meant, or the director hoped to convey, or how the dancers translated the work so they could perform it?

All of that got me thinking about the process of art. Both Wicked and Flush had elements from The Wizard of Oz and it made me consider what it would mean to pull the curtain back on the writing process. Throughout my life, people have asked me about being a writer, as if it’s mysterious. And in some ways, I guess it is. From a very young age people are told they can’t make a living as writers, yet some people do make careers of it. Some people write their entire lives without ever finding an audience for their work, or they find audiences through nontraditional channels. In the last few months, I’ve had people ask me about various aspects of my writing process: being a blogger; getting poems, articles or essays published; how to decide what to write about or find a voice, getting an agent; if I would critique their writing; what author platform is; whether it’s worth it to go to grad school for writing among other things. I’m figuring it out as I go along, but thinking about how often I’m asked how I do it made me realize it might help people if I dedicated this site to exploring different writers’ ways of working.

Before I’d left the theater, I decided my website would take a new direction. I got home, changed the tagline and wrote a new description for this site. In our right minds, no one would ever pursue creative writing. We’re told no one makes a living at it, writers are crazy, addicted, or otherwise damaged.  But in our wrong mind–that universe of creativity and hope–we do it anyway. Here’s one writer, in her wrong mind, pulling back the curtain so you can see how I fit writing into my life, what I do with it, how I find markets and submit work, participate in various writing communities, and navigate the unfolding world of social media to build an author platform. I’ll interview writers from different genres and at varying steps in their own process so you can hear a variety of ways of doing it. I’ll publish guest posts on people finding a way to write once they have kids: how to make time for writing when you have a day job, other people wanting your time outside of work, and you still must write or you’ll go crazy. Whether or not writers make a living at it, writing makes them a life.

Photo by gemenes