The three days that I've spent away from fiction were spent in writing a non-fiction piece that had a very short deadline and hence, was made my priority.
But what I find wildly amusing about the whole process was that it took me three days-- three DAYS-- to write and polish 1,500 words.
The journalism and novel writing processes are so different, as I'm now discovering. I've written more than 2,000 words today, and if I wanted, I'd be able to polish them up in a few hours. None of that fact-checking, research, and thorough analysis that is demanded by non-fiction. Of course, every word needs to shine, and every word needs to move the book forward, and none of it can be disposed off easily. However, I find that you have more freedom in fiction. Maybe that's why I've felt a pull to it. I want to use fiction to voice what I haven't been able to in my non-fiction.
Regardless, it's fascinating to me to see how different the two processes are. And yet the core of it comes down to one simple thing: putting one word after the other on a blank slate.
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