This is very variable. I think the well-known response by some writers that you're inspired as soon as you sit down at your desk is a good one. I think about writing most of the time, or about books and stories, so I'm nearly always in that world of the word.
All sorts of things can spur a story, including great writing from other people, a play, or a concert, or a walk, anything. Ideas and characters pop into your head at anytime. My problem is catching them before I forget!
Well, usually I'll just be doing any sort of activity, and I'll get inspiration. For example, I could be driving down the highway at night and see the lights flashing by me and something like this will come to mind, " As the city lights flashed by me, I fled from the one place I truly belong. The one place I've known my entire life. And I was leaving it all behind in a flash," and so a new story will start.
I don't have a creative "process." That sounds too methodical for me. I simply write, though I'm mindful of the adage: "Apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair, and write."
Since this memoir is based on another person's life, I first had the subject write down everything he remembered, which ended up being 90 handwritten pages of random memories and thoughts. We then spent a year together in an interview process to further clarify and document the events. I then had to organize the events chronologically, perform over a year of World War II history research to corroborate and enhance his personal history, then pull all the elements together to create an authentic, interesting story, all in his voice.
The story keeps perambulating within me and when it is ready to come out I sit down and write it.
Everyday occurances can produce rhymes in my head and I just expand from there.
Before I had pain medication I used to write continuously from the moment of waking up till the point I hit "The End" on the book, often with relatively little sleep. This is because sustained long writing sessions generated endorphins and knocked the pain down. mysteriously with the pain down I was writing better too. I have chronic pain. When I did get good maintenance pain medication I was able to scale back to a chapter or two or three a day, and enjoy other things while writing.
This has only slightly slowed my production of new fantasy novels. I write them like Impressionists paint. I start with an opening conflict, a concept, it can be anything -- and then I follow the story writing down what happens next in a process a lot like reading a new novel. From the point anything goes on the page, it's "play it where it lays" and I wind up exploring the consequences of the characters' decisions as well as throwing in new things left and right to poke them and get the most fun next page.
Most fun for me is not most fun for the characters. I pick on them like an evil gamemaster, always pushing them harder and making things tougher. Sometimes they get going on each other and create new conflicts, this is great and I back off to let them do it or interrupt it with ohter conflicts.
Before starting, I may warm up to it a bit and think about the starter. I hate doing short stories because I do have to put in a day or two or more ruminating about what to write and then the actual writing is over with in only an hour. It takes as much energy and effort but doesn't give me a good long satisfying book to roam in.
I like participating in things like Nanowrimo and the Three Day Novel Contest. This year I'm entering the Three Day Novel Contest for real, will bother to pay the entry fee instead of just doing an unofficial three day novel. Last year's ran to 75,000 words or respectable book length, not just a 30,000 word novelette or a 40,000 word short novel. During those marathons I go into my old writing trance, don't sleep much, don't do anything else and type 110 words a minute or so without worrying about it.
That pace means that I don't get as many problems of hesitation. I don't have time to worry about whether it's good. I get it down that fast. Then like Stephen King, I know what happened and can either edit that draft or chuck it and start over with a better idea of where to put the emphasis. He wrote in an interview that his first draft was just to find out what happened and then he'd toss that and write the real book.
I love that method, it worked well in "Curse of Vaumuru." The first version, written with and for a girlfriend, was a steamy semi-romance with a lot of hot stuff in it, a bit overdone on the romance plot and the love scenes. So a couple of years later I started over from the concept, came up with the current version and now in the edits am finding out how much more needs to be blended in to give the full scope and richness to the story.
When I got used to finishing a draft in a month or a week, it's no great loss to just toss that draft and start over. I don't actually throw them away. I keep the files and sometimes go back to them to mine them for cool little bits to bring into the new draft.   | | |
The first thing I do is have prayer, and the Holy Spirit inspires my writing. I have many ideas that come to me in the night, and I immediately get up and jot them down so I don't lose them. This is all from God. I listen intently to God wherever I'm at, whether I'm walking, driving, or writing.
God gives me peace in this world of chaos. I have no stress and no fear about what's going on today, and I know where this peace comes from.
I think and day dream alot about it, the plot, the characters, I make little notes in my scrapbook and then I set a day and time where I force myself to string together the little details into a story.
The creative process for me (whether writing or painting) comes from places inside me that can be found in meditational states. I like to say that the creatve process is driven by my dark side, and that I do not create my art, rather it creates itself through me. When I'm writing I withdraw inside myself and often forget to come up for air. Sometimes ideas just wake me up at night. The important thing, I think, is to realize that writing is an ongoing process process, and there are always many works underway all at the same time. A good idea for any one of my projects can just present itself at any given moment, and I just gotta hope there's a pen near by. Most of my writing starts in free writing journals.
Mostly its pen and paper spontaneity ; like what i'm feeling at that time mostly my work is personal feeling. Also my creative process is how to use words in a way were can express the tone in the piece but not directly.
First I would feel the energy, the overwhelming urge to write. Then, I simply sit down and pour that energy on paper.
I am never not creative, there is always a creative stew going on. If I have a poem inside me I cannot sleep, I cannot concentrate until I write it.
Well,I believe in the Creative Muse to be earnest.A poet is but an ordinary man at ordinary times.It's only when he gets possessed by the creative urge that he begins to visualize things.Poetry is intensely visual.The lines simply come to at times from the thin air and get built in me and I write almost as if in a trance.Also thi desire to create is so imposing and powerful that I always have to put aside my other assignments to pen down my poems.
Events, ideas and other things that come to my attention begin to rhyme in my head and they don't stop. I will sometimes start writing it down (even in the middle of the night) as it comes in verbatim. Other times I will write a few ideas and later expatiate on the subject (this is harder to do). Many times if I don't write it down I lose some or all of it. |
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