Several weeks ago, I met with a successful architect on a windy ridge in the Santa Monica Mountains. He spoke five languages, had received numerous awards and was featured in many trade publications. During the course of our conversation, he stared into the canyon and said, wistfully: "I wish I could write. I'd love to write a book some day." I followed his gaze into the lush green canyon, and I wondered how many others have yearned for this mythical land, a place where words grow on trees, and perfect clauses fill the rivers, and the hills are cluttered with magnificent paragraphs, and publishers wait with open arms and lucrative book contracts.

I thought of Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood, who was famously quoted in a November 1967 McCall's as saying: "To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music the words make." Too often, we confuse the act of writing as a product oriented undertaking, where the craft of writing becomes overshadowed by the expectations of our labors. Without question, thousands of people write books, articles, memos, letters, emails and essays, which result in a product that can be bought, read, filed, saved or deleted. But what happens before the creation of the product? Why does the anticipation of this creation stop so many potential writers dead? What happens to the music of words?

Many of us progressed through an education system, where writing was manufactured at the request of teachers, parents and administrators. We wrote summaries, formal essays, and paragraph responses to a wide variety of prompts. We read stories and books to understand theme. We were trained to view writing as a way of resolving or understanding a problem. Of course, some of us didn't even get that opportunity. I remember an English teacher, who would stumble into class reeking of cigarettes and alcohol. He would assign the class a poem to copy, then tip back his chair and fall asleep. In the classic student/teacher paradigm, writing becomes associated with a chore, an obligation to fulfill-in short, a product to produce.

So, what happens when you want to write that book you've always wanted to write? How can you make the words flow like sweet cream? How do you enter that mythical land? Like the architect, many professionals find themselves at a stage of life where they're ready to impart their bountiful knowledge. They've got a product, a plan, a lifestyle, a vision, a method, or a program. Unfortunately, a built-in conflict is about to take shape. The eager writer becomes focused on product, not process. Sadly, before the writing begins, the book fails.

When process becomes displaced by expectation, the writer's labor becomes overwhelmed with impatience. Words cease to flow. Computers fly out of windows. The walls of your home develop strange holes, where your golf club or hairbrush has slammed into the drywall. Eventually, your editor suggests you get a job at McDonalds. On the other hand, through process the execution of your words becomes infused with a vital energy, an energy that invigorates each page and chapter with passion. Fortunately, when that energy appears on the page, your reader will submit his or her precious hours to any world you wish to create. And when that happens, you have found the music of words.

© 2007, Keller Media, Inc.  Permission to reprint is granted to long as article & by-line remain intact and all links are made live.

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