They think. Then they write. Then they think some more, and revise what earlier they wrote. Then they ask friends to read the revision, whereupon — with misgivings and doubt — they re-write the revision. Sooner or later, however, they decide, as Maud Newton points out, that
no one else is going to be able to produce the actual words that will make the story work the way you want it to.
Or, as summed up by Katherine Anne Porter,
Simply stated, maybe too simply, it is the writer’s business to have something of his own to say; second, to say it in his own language and style.
