This month we are going to look at process in some areas besides collaborative work. We are going to look at other fields where you have a choice to focus on content or focus on process, to see if valuing process works in those fields. This week we are looking at the writing process, particularly the process of writing fiction.

I recently completed my first novel. (Actually, at 42,000 words, some would call it a novelette.) It deals with the healing process after rape. It is the only novel I have been able to find (with my admittedly weak research skills) in which the victim is the main character, not simply a pawn in a chess game between the perp and the criminal justice system.

When I was writing the story, I took the advice of Ann Lamott, Erica Jong, and many other writers and let my character tell her story. I was surprised when she told me a story of rape and healing. No woman chooses to be raped. I asked my character why she chose to tell me a story of rape. She said that millions of women, hundreds every day, have stories of rape that never get told. She told her story because she could. Because she had to. Because maybe people would hear in a work of fiction a Truth that they could not hear in any other way.

But this is not a blog about sexual violence, as important as that subject is to talk about. Maybe more important than process values. Or maybe just the same, because both topics are about how we treat one another. But to get back to process values, my little tale of the creative process highlights a process value. I did not start out caring about the content of my story. Actually, I did start out that way, three or four times. I have the first chapter of each of several books that I thought I knew what the book was going to be about. I started out by valuing content. Nothing came of any of them. It was only when I let go of my content values and focused on the process of listening to my characters, of letting them tell the story of what was going on for them, that I wrote a novel that I am proud of.