Last week I read a writer's post about the lonely life of a writer. Yes, we're usually secluded during the actual writing times, but that's only a part of the writing process. The people in a writer's life are instrumental in the process and in the finished product.

On my research trip last weekend, I took my dad with me to the town I wanted to use as my novel's setting. Walking into a local gift shop, I wandered around the rooms, looking for something to buy that would perfectly represent the uniqueness of the little town. I found nothing, but fortunately I had brought my dad along on the trip. As I walked out of the shop, he was at the front desk, asking the sales clerk if there were any books available on the history of the town.

"Yes, there's a book on our history," the woman said. "It's out of print, but the author lives nearby."

Who would have thought that a town of 200 people would have a 400 page book on its history? As a professional writer, experience told me there would be no type of written history. My dad was smart enough to ask anyway.

There are lonely parts of the writing life, but no book was a one-man project. There are a number of people in my life that I need to function as a writer. I have soft editors for encouragement, red pen editors to shape the draft into a saleable piece, industry experts to provide accuracy, and brainstormers to help me generate ideas and work out story problems.
If writing were really a lonely project, books and articles wouldn’t be as well-rounded as they are. How fortunate we are that God created us as communal beings, meant to depend on and help one another with all our projects.