I’ve been attending the Writing For Young Readers Workshop in Sandy, Utah this week (Just barely. Mostly, I’ve been working). It’s been a good experience so far. I got to meet my super-awesome agent in the flesh and I’ve been able to talk with some great authors such as Brandon Mull and great illustrators such as Guy Francis. I would have enjoyed it more if there weren’t some much talk about one series of books about glittery vampires and werewolves that aren’t really werewolves.
I’ve been thinking about the writing process and how an idea becomes a book. For most people, I think, it is a process. It is rare when an idea or character plops into your mind fully-formed. A character or story is discovered in the writing process. And, often times, it takes a fair amount of time for that idea to develop into something workable.
I think of it like cooking a steak. There’s the initial spark and the flames to get the juices flowing. A good steak is a complex thing flavor-wise. There’s the crispness of the charring, the juiciness of the meat, and the earthy taste of beef. But, there’s a step that many people forget. The resting.
After a steak has sizzled atop a grill, all those juices and flavors are rolling around and wild. If you take that slab of meat and let it sit for a few minutes before eating, the juices will re-absorb back into the meat. You have to the the thing rest.
Right now, I have several pieces of writing that are resting. Some have been resting for longer than others. I have one manuscript that is about 75,000 words (that’s longish) and is nearly complete. But I just can’t finish the thing. I will, I’m sure, at some point. But I can’t wrap my mind around it yet. I think it’s brilliant. But it’s not ready. And it may not be for a very long time.
The project that I am working on now (and is very near ready to be submitted) sat dormant in my brain for a couple of years. It started with a simple little sketch that I played with now and then. Two years after that initial sketch, the idea came back. This time, though, it was different. I let the idea roll around in my mind for so long, it had solidified into something substantial. It had grown into a workable idea. And then, the story just poured out of me.
The resting doesn’t have to take years. I have another story that came to me recently (isn’t that a weird way of looking at it – the idea ‘came to me’? I’m not sure that’s really how it works but that’s the best way I can describe it.) and I whipped up a draft fairly quickly. It helps that it is very short. Even though it’s developing more quickly than some of my other projects, I still have to step away from it for a few days to let it rest. I have to let the juices flow back in. The idea needs a little room to grow and develop.
If you rush it, you run the chance of doing what I have done to many good cuts of meat. You sap it of it’s flavor. Nothing is worse than a dry, chewy piece of meat.
