The Writing Process

Mozart is considered the most genius of all musicians. He was playing the piano proficiently by the age of four, and he was composing works of art by the time he was seven years old. I look back at all of the music he composed, and his operas stand out the most to me. Part of the reason why is that I spent time in Vienna studying him and his music. Fortunately, Sherry and I were able to spend an entire week in that grand city absorbing great music night after night.

The movie, Amadeus, is one of my favorite movies of all time. I find myself watching it over and over again. While a beautiful film, it is historically incorrect, but I think that most people are aware of that by now. The one thing that it does portray accurately, though, is how the man wrote his music. I actually toured his home where he would play billiards while writing music. What I found most fascinating was his ability to compose an entire opera in his head before writing it down. In the film, he was seen telling the manager of the Italian Opera that the opera was in his head, but the director of the film made Mozart look a little crazy when they portrayed that scene.

The truth was, though, that he would "write" the music in his head first, and then he would pen it on paper, and it just flowed easily when he got to that point. There is a legend that he wrote Don Giovanni in three days. That legend is only partially true. He and Lorenzo Da Ponte collaborated on that opera for months before it went to production. Da Ponte, it was said, wrote the libretto in three to four days, and Mozart wrote the music in three or four days. What is not understood, however, is the fact that they actually had the libretto and music written long before that (in their heads), and those who witnessed them writing the libretto and music only saw the end product being produced. Mozart, in fact, cut it so close that the ink was still drying when he got the music to the conductor on the first night of rehearsals.

For me, the writing process is very similar, and a lot of people just don't understand it. Sometimes, my wife doesn't understand it either. I will think about something for months, ponder it, make a few notes, write a paragraph or two to get the voice down, and then I will do nothing as it seems to everyone else. While I am writing in my head, I do things that are mind-numbing. I play on the computer, I search the Internet, I watch TV shows on the Internet. Anything that doesn't make me think because I'm thinking about the piece that I am writing. Others think I'm just putting it off and being lazy. The funny thing is, I'm working very hard in my head. Oddly enough, Mozart and Da Ponte were accused of the same thing by those at the Italian Opera. Instead of spending hours holed up in ther workrooms, they were meeting by the fountains, having coffee at the cafes, and spending time at other operas.

A client of mine right now almost forgot that I told him up front that this is how the process works for me. I had two-and-a-half months to write a book, yet I did not start writing until three weeks before deadline. The reality is, I was already writing in my head after sinking my brain into the material. Now, he is amazed at how quickly I'm writing each chapter. What would have taken someone else a day to write, I wrote it in two hours, and he was amazed. In fact, we spoke on the phone yesterday because he was so happy with the first chapter, and when I told him how long it took to write it, he was flabbergasted. He just couldn't believe it. I reminded him, however, that I'd been spending these weeks researching the subject and going over the information in my head over and over to a point where I had it written in my head. So, nothing held me up on the project, it was just my process of writing, and I will still beat the deadline because the book is in my head.

I don't know if this is a gift or not. It certainly has not hindered my writing at all. In fact, I think it gives me much more depth. Since I don't have to worry about the content while writing, because it's already there, it allows me to be so much more conscious about word usage, richness, poetics, etc., while I actually write. If this is a gift, I am very grateful for having it. I'm not saying that I'm in the same league as Da Ponte or Mozart in regards to their genius, but I do know what it's like to write in my head only to produce it in a very short period of time as others see it.