It took me till I’d been published for seven years or so, before I realized I was doing it all wrong.  Now this is fairly normal.  Okay, it’s fairly normal for me – I don’t know about the rest of you zombies.  I’m either unusually dense, or I need to have some sort of a running start to get the rest of the view of the field.

Anyway. here’s the thing: I’d been published for going on seven years before I realized that writing was not about ideas.

By then, I’d sort of gotten used to the idea that it wasn’t about words.  Okay, that took Dean Wesley Smith telling me to get over the word thing, but you get my meaning.  I’d got it.  I’d realized that while writing can use incredibly beautiful words, the one thing I got for free in the craft – words – were…