My creative process comes in spurts. I like to act out what I want to write in order to convey the feelings, movements and thoughts correctly.
My creative process is plopping my butt in the chair and starting to type. After that the characters take over. It all depends on which character is yelling the loudest as to which book I decide to work on any particular day. I do try to write 1,000 words a day.
That's a hard question to answer. I really don't have a "creative process" ideas just pop into my head and I start writing.
Not anything special. I just begin to write.
"Writers" trying to write are susceptible to "writer's block". That comes from trying too hard. One must write simply from the heart and have something they think is important to say to others. I leave my mind blank and then allow God to write my books by just letting His words flow through me.
Once the idea arrives (usually a combination of ideas actually that don't work individually but do together), I think on it for weeks, months. Then I take a notepad and start outlining, brainstorming, writing down key scenes, characters, identifying settings so I can know what things can happen there and what cannot. This can easily eat up another six months but it is the part of the process I enjoy most, so I suppose I devote more time to it than someone else might. Travel really helps with this part for me. I also keep a small notebook on me at all times and next to the bed while I am sleeping. Only when I can with reasonable confidence say I know who is going where do I start typing anything. Then I try to get a draft out as continuously as possible, without any revision to earlier chapters at all. Once the draft is out, I let it sit for a while, and then I start rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. Five or ten drafts later, I have something I'm happy with, at least as happy as I'll ever be with it!
As far as before each writing session, I think Hemingway had it right: NEVER write until you've exhausted your train of thought, because the next time you sit down, you'll be stuck. It works. Stop work while you still have something in your creative well, so when you sit down the next day, you can start without any creativity required at all. And then by the time you finish that up, you'll be limber and loose and in all probability, you'll know what you have to write next.   | | |
I don't choose to write. I write from the preconscious, and the work bubbles up when it is ready, sometimes at the damndest times, to great inconvenience.
My poem "In the Arms of the Dragon" came to me in high-speed, dense traffic on Lincoln Boulevard in Los Angeles. I couldn't pull over and didn't have my recorder with me, so I started chanting it to myself, all the way home...raced in the door at my apartment and wrote it down.
I surround myself with the elements of the subject I am about to create.
I search the news and devise a similar crime but with a completely honest approach to reality.
I do a lot of daydreaming setting up my characters.
I enjoy writing while having a cup of green tea. Typically, I write with pen and paper and then type or dictate into the computer. Much of my writing takes place at the local Barnes and Noble Bookstore.
Actually, I can't say as I write on demand. I am just compelled to write.
This is a tough question to answer. I'm a very fast paced person. so when it comes to writing I tend to have several things going on in my head at one time and I end up writing little bits here and there. Especially when it comes to prose I do this. Poetry I can sit down and type out a poem in a few minutes that's been floating around in my head, but prose I get major plot points and write them out, and then just try to figure out how to connect them.
Most of my writing draws from my everyday life, so when I sit down to write its a matter of sorting what things work well where. If you want an example of this, read on my redbubble account the first chapter of my book "Should I Have Been Batman" (sorry working title).
You've heard of the Fugitive Writers. I happen to be a Furtive Writer. I write only when it is inconvenient, when I'm least likely to over-think what I'm to write. It comes out on napkins, sticky notes, tablets, backs of bills, etc. I never prepare. I write in-between things, in the midst of things and at the edges of things.
I hadn't written fiction (except for little stories for my grandchildren at Christmas) until about five years ago. I published my first novel, "The Cielo: A Novel of Wartime Tuscany," in 2006, and its sequel, "Sparrow's Revenge: A Novel of Postwar Tuscany," in 2008. I've started work on the third of "A Tuscan Trilogy."
I think what happens before I write is I immerse myself in the characters and their story. The characters become very real, and now that I've been writing about the same ones, or at least some of them, for five years, I've gotten to know them pretty well.
You can find more information about the books at:
www.thecielobook.com
And you can watch a video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnUHiE109I0
Usually when I have a strong new idea or an inspiration for a poem, I am pulled to my MAC and the words flow. I like to write in the morning when I am most alert. My favorite days are in the summer when I don't need to drive anyone to school and I can just wake up, meditate, feed the goats and pony and then dive in for a couple hours straight before anyone wakes up.
Rewriting is another story. I make a cup of tea, check Facebook, turn on the heater, pet the cat, feed the pony, check email, turn off the heater and FINALLY get to it. Once I begin to rewrite I am immersed.
Mostly relaxed - until the "Muse" visits. Then, energy begins to flow and the words come. Sometimes, not my own, but usually worthy of note. |
99694 interviews created
INVITE YOUR FRIENDS