I’ve been pondering lately why it is that people seem so fascinated with how we writers work. Readers — and those that aren’t — always want to know where we get our ideas, what tools we use, what process we use to weave a tale from thin air. Some would-be and beginning writers even study the techniques of their favorite bestselling authors, succumbing to the cargo cult thinking that replicating the process will reproduce the resulting bestsellerdom. This focus on the “how” of writing always puzzles me a little, especially coming from non-writers. I can’t think of many other areas of life where we show similar curiosity. We don’t care what kind of blade our contractor puts on his Sawzall, so long the sink is in the right place when the kitchen remodel is done. We don’t really want to know the exact mix of pigments our painter uses, so long as our dining room wall ends up Tatami Tan and not some other color. We don’t even really care what brand of violin they’re playing on the CD in the car stereo — well, unless it’s a Stradivarius, perhaps. So why the fascination with how writers work? I think the reason is, perhaps, that the process of writing is the closest thing we have in today’s world to alchemy. It’s almost as though we possess a form of philosopher’s stone. But rather than transmuting lead into gold, the writer’s magic transmutes ideas and thoughts and the small snippets of ordinary lives into whole worlds and universes, and lets us share those invisible nowheres with other people. To me, that is the true magic of writing. We can all create castles and dragons and princesses in our minds, or imagine killing a hated boss, or falling in love with a handsome and mysterious stranger. But the writer’s lapis philosophorum has the remarkable power to anchor that imaginary world into the physical one, and to create a portal between the two. We do more than lose ourselves in our fantasies: We create a way for others to enter them, to see the worlds we create, to experience the stories that play out in our imaginations, and to pass between those worlds as easily and simply as picking up a book. If writing is the magic of today, and we are the sorceresses and mages of the modern world, it’s no small wonder that people want to know how we do it. After all, everyone always wants to know how the trick is done.
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