A friend of mine wrote a blog about the process of writing. Actually, it was more about thinking about the process. During an interview, he'd been asked how he wrote. This seems to be a popular question. People want to know the secret to writing a novel. When the answer doesn't come quickly, the person who asked tends to think the writer is part of a conspiracy to protect the "code of authors".
     I'll tell you now ... there's no code of silence among writers. If you want to learn more about the process of writing, I suggest you take high school, college, or online writing classes. You can also check out the writing section of your local bookstore where you'll find books about how to write. Why don't I just tell you, free of charge, how to write a novel? Because I really don't know how. I know that sounds crazy because I've written a novel and plan to write more. The thing is, I don't follow the established rules of writing. I don't develop in-depth character profiles, make schedules to write for so long or so many words a day, seclude myself away in a quiet room, or the many other things suggested in those books about writing. I get an idea, sit down with a notebook, turn on the television or radio, and write. The ideas for plots and the words I write just pop into my head.
     If what I just told you was my secret, it's no longer a secret. If you ask for a more in-depth explanation about how I write, I have nothing to say. I'm not even going to sit down and try to discover what more might lay behind my process. To me, writing is magic and studying the minute details of the process would probably take away something special that allows me to write as I do. I agree with my friend when he says that sometimes it's better just to know something works, not how it works.
     This is what I left as a comment under that blog. "Like many things in life, if we sit to analyze anything too deeply, it loses it's magic. I went to college for environmental studies, so many classes focused on how various parts of the environment work. For a few years after graduating, nature lost the magic it once held. Instead of enjoying rainbows, I sat there knowing that as soon as the earth rotated enough the sun was in a different location or the water droplets in the air were gone, the rainbow would be disappear. It wasn't until my niece told me that God painted the rainbow there did I regain the magic of the rainbow. Magic only works if we don't know the magician's secrets. So it is with the process of writing."