It happens whether I'm on deadline or not. Warning: I'm like Jack Nicholson's character in the film As Good As It Gets when I'm creating...Read: Don't bother me or I will be catty. It's like being in the zone (i.e., swimming) and getting disturbed. Not my fantasy.
When I first started writing my novel - about 4 years ago - I could just sit down to the computer and write. I rarely had to re-read anything from the last session because I never felt like I left the story. That was while I was unemployed. When I got a job, I schooled myself for at least three hours per night.
Now, however, I have to psych myself up. I've completed and revised two novels in the trilogy, and am nearly finished with the third. For a while I had to start by writing a letter or e-mail to friends or family to get me going. Some days are easier than others; and I love it when I just sit down and start on whatever has been cycling through my mind.
I don't think about it. Just do it.
I think about my content as much as I can before writing. Occasionally I will write notes, but often do not even look at them while writing "the work."
Lots of research, note taking and getting a basic plot idea, then just sit at the computer and start to type. It's fun to see where the story takes you.
I don't really have a process and I don't have any type of preliminary ritual before sitting down to write; I usually get the "feeling" that I would really like to write something, and I just write until I feel in my heart that it's exactly the way I want it to sound. Sometimes, like when I wrote my poem "Too Shy," the words almost gushed out of me I only had to do minimal editing. Other times, I've begun writing something only to find that I need to let it go for a day or so, then I come back to it at a later time and writing it comes much easier.
I like the creative process by which I sit down in front of the computer and the words just flow endlessly and flawlessly from mind to finers to keyboard without a need for any revision. That, unfortunately, rarely happens.
Really, I wish I could say that I have a "process." Most of the writing I have been doing lately has been journalistic in nature and therefore follows the typical research, interview, compile, revise, and then publish procedure. Dealing with writer's block is a major challenge for me. When I am faced with a particularly bad case, I have found success by pushing what I'm working on to the side and blasting out a page of completely unrelated, stream-of-consciousness material.
Only one thing happens reliably before I write: the coffee gets made.
make a cup of tea.
If something pops into my head ill write it out and see where it goes
Usually, I get an idea, but it doesn't develop until I start writing. The story takes shape as I type, as if the characters are leading me through the story.
My creative process is anarchic. I try to write when I can, not just when I am inspired to do so. I try to think through each scene or each piece of writing, word by word, sentence by sentence, looking for a jump off point or a point of reference that will ground the scene in my imagination.
I come up with the idea, develop the scenario, add in the characters and then write the action. The actual writing part is the easiest bit for me.
I have a marble notebook with facts if I had to do research and good lines if I had thought any. A can of soda is key.
I must have been inspired for what next to write and when to start. I relax and visualise the setting to be applied and then start to write. I do better when I start to feel excited about what I was about to write. |
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