What is your creative process like? What happens before sitting down to write?
I’m sixty-five, so I have many years of observations and experiences to work with. To prevent things from slipping my mind, I keep files of thoughts, imaginary characters, situations, etc. I reread these files before I start an outline for a book.
I'm a puppet to my words.... I follow, they lead, and they astound me.
Action mapping. I think of action before actual words. I visualise in my mind. It's like watching a movie. Every expression, turn, explosion & exchange. Then there is also verbal mapping. I think of words before action. They can mesh together or take their turn. Inspiration is a fickle creature but it can be tamed.
It can be very complicated or very simple depending on the day. Some days I have to take long walks or sit outdoors a while to sort out my thoughts. Other days the ideas just seem to flow as if someone is whispering them in my ear or my characters are in the room with me. In any case I find it usually helps me to work scenes out in my head in advance before I try to put them on paper. I am usually inspired by nature and just watching other people and how they act.
Ha, I wouldn't call it a process so much as a flash. I'm not big on brainstorming or drafts. I was heavily influenced by the beat generation early on, so I just kind of write when it comes to me.
I don't have a set process, as I feel that having one would stifle my creativity. There is one thing I do make a point of doing: Writing and editing on a physical piece of paper. I don't write on a computer as I have found that when I do so I tend to miss glaring errors or not put something in that would make the piece wonderful.
Usually when I write I am listening to something, or watching something, or am reading something, and an idea will spring to me and I will run with it. Sometimes I write it as a outline so that I can go back and expound on it later, or sometimes I write it out in full.
I try not to write when I feel that I have no good idea to go with. To do so, I feel is like trying to siphon water from a dry pump. You get nothing good and you end up damaging the pump.
It could be something I watched on TV or read in newspaper or something I heard or experienced personally.
I like to watch television or a good movie before starting the writing process..
I was a sort of child prodigy on the piano. I gave recitals throughout Asia as well as America. I retired at age 18 because it wasn't lucrative enough for the amount of time I was spending on practicing for a concerto.I became a fashion and commercial model. This meant that I did beauty commercials for Helena Rubinstein or Jaclyn Cochran. In addition to a good up front payment, I received residuals for years. I did not stop playing the piano. I found other spaces for my creativity. Jazz fascinated me. I composed and arranged for jazz musicians,mostly for the sax, horn, drums and clarinet and oboe.
My creative process is clearly in my head. Many everyday occurrences touch and move me. The human condition in particular is an overpowering force for me. Human suffering and my impotence and rage against it is what propels me. My protagonists fight against their destinies if and when they can. Sometimes they accept it but as the saying goes, they don't have to like it. When the opportunity presents itself, they grab it and empower themselves.
I am able for instance to write music anywhere I happen to be. It just flows. The same thing occurs with words. Before going to sleep I review the essays for my blogs and the dialogue as the scenes unfold for my books. I usually work on more than one book. Each book jolts me into a chain reaction. Classical music, jazz, flamenco and Gregorian chants are always playing in the background. They not only relax me physically but stimulate me mentally. I am disciplined. I sit down before my Mac every morning after at 8:00 in the morning and write until noon. I am fortunate to have domestic staff who are kind enough to prepare several cups of green tea with tea leaves and one cup of Lapsang Suchong tea in the course of the morning. They also prepare a Chinese luncheon for me and for my husband when he is not traveling. He is an entrepreneur. By 1:30 at the latest I am once again facing my Mac and stay there until 4:00 with 10 minute breaks to loosen my body with ballet stretching.   | | |
I pour myself a single malt, light up a cigar, and let the creative juices flow!
I have to discipline myself to sit down and write even when I don't have an idea is going to come out on to the paper. Right now, I most often sit down to write when I have a sudden inspiration.
It's very demanding. I usually work four to five hours a day, and my novels are complete chaos until the last draft--which might be draft 15!
Stories and little scenes bubble away in my head while I'm doing every day things until they become so unbearable to live with I have to put them down in paper. Like right now I'm in the middle of writing a novel and somewhere in a corner of my mind, the characters lives are developing and I can even hear them speak (spooky) and I know soon I'll have to transfer that to paper (computer).
My creative process is much like organized chaos. I know where everything that I need is, but if anyone else were to come through, they'd have no idea what they're looking at. I use all sorts of tools to help me remember little bits and details of the larger projects that I work on. The hardest part is getting them out of my head, onto whatever tool I'm using that day and then translating those notes into prose.
Most of the time before I sit down to write I'm doing something completely unrelated to whatever it is I've been working on. I've been in the middle of a load of laundry before, or in the shower (and cursing the world for not having invented a way to write on the shower walls that doesn't wash off with just water and won't leave stains) and find that I need to rush around to find something to write on before I lose the thought I had and secretly hope that I don't have to stand dripping wet or with a pair of soaking jeans over my shoulder for too long; but also even more secretly hoping that I do. | | |
Little by little an inspiration, or an idea will deepen within me in such a way that I cannot but write it out. |
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