People don’t understand writers.  They don’t understand the process we go through to write or some of the quirky things we do.  The average person thinks writers can easily whip out story ideas, poems, or novels without thinking twice about it.  But the entire process is much more complex than anyone can possibly imagine.

Writers think differently than others, we see the world differently, and we often do things people don’t understand.  In this post I’d like to clarify some of the things writers do so people can better understand the way we think.

1. Writers observe things.  We people watch and appear to stare blankly into space.  What we are doing here is listening intently to conversations, watching people’s body language, and noticing small details.  We take mental notes and jot things down while we do this.  So if it ever appears that a writer is staring at you and making random notes as they…