Word After Word After Word

Word After Word After Word

By John W. Vander Velden

I have been asked how I write a book...the process required. Perhaps I gave that person a simplistic answer when I told him you just have to put one word after another. You see I believe there is a difference between coming up with a story and writing a book. Don’t get me wrong, writing a book, especially fiction, requires story telling skills. Skills for developing a plot, and all the rest that is needed to fill that plot, description of setting, and character as well. However turning those concepts, that live only in my mind, into words on the page that transmit what I’m thinking in a way my reader accepts is another matter entirely.

I love writing first drafts. I love writing word after word after word and seeing where those words lead me. I seldom know the ending before I get there. But no matter how I might love my original draft, “it is a long way to Tipperary”, and being publishing ready. There is revisions, and sending revised draft off to my editor. Hi Kristina. And the revisions to follow. But in the end it is writing word after word after word.

When I look at the mountain of work writing a book requires, I ask myself, “why?” Why go to all the trouble to complete a task that probably won’t pay for its cost, let alone reward me for my effort? The truth, the absolute truth is. I write because I must. Because the stories come as un-thieves, break into my mind and leave their treasures behind. Those non-burglars demand I do my best to fill in the blanks...word after word after word.

It is my only hope that when I am finally through stringing words, like beads on a thread, that the result is good enough, that I do not fail the quiet voice within me that gives me a story...word after word after word. (324 Words) 3-2-2019