Anne here. Over the past week or so, on our private loop, we wenches have been discussing various aspects of our writing processes. Writing goes through dips and troughs, periods of intense creativity and periods of fallowness, where we have to force ourselves to get words on the page, and I thought the collective wenchly wisdom of our discussion was worth sharing.
The discussion started when I related an anecdote about a friend of mine who writes--and writes well--on trains (and I'm not talking about grafitti.) In a 90 minute return trip on the train, she regularly writes around 3000 words.
One of the wenches replied: I can do 3,000 in three hours when I'm on a roll. It's clay. Sometimes good clay. Sometimes junk. It's the way I write, and clearly I can't do 3,000 publish ready words in 3 hours, or doing that daily would result in a 90K book a month. Mine take most of a year. We all have our different processes.
(Anne again: I'm not going to label who said what, just change color each time it's a different person. And though there are eight people in this discussion, using eight different colors would look silly, so there are just two. So forget about trying to work out who is saying what — on with the discussion:—
True about processes. But I seem to labor so hard to get words on paper. The only good news, is the words tend to be fairly well formed. But I’ve been thinking that getting the clay out faster, then shaping, sculpting, would be a better process. Not sure I can change, but I’d like to.
The Muse
My Muse requires changing things up occasionally, so maybe yours does too. I finally learned to download non-interfering music to play when I hit a wall. It goes in one ear and out the other, but it seems to stir the subconscious and says WRITE! The sun also helps. But I have to keep changing things up.
Dictation?
Maybe talking will do it for you. Have you ever tried dictation? Maybe not looking at the screen would be beneficial?
That’s an interesting idea! For some reason oral stuff usually doesn’t work for me—I do need to see the words to keep any coherent flow going. But maybe I should suspend preconceptions and give it a try. I’m open to anything that might jumpstart a fresh way of doing things.
As I understand it, the subconscious is activated differently in different people. Some people respond to motion, some to sound, some to visual images, etc. The ability to focus is a different part of the brain, and is also stimulated by different things. I absorb information visually, focus with music, and create kinetically (rocking chair, writing by hand, etc). So it does take some experimentation to find what works for you.
We all have certain hard wiring for process, depending on our brains and perception types - left, right or mixed dominance, or whatever proportion of visual, auditory, kinesthetic we are. Speaking programs don't work for me - I get nothing. I need that direct brain-to-fingers connection to write and create. Verbalization is more left brain, that ability to vocalize profusely. Not me. I think it's the artist programming that I seem to have, that brain/hand connection just works best for me.
I can write pretty quickly at first, with ideas and research and all that honeymoon phase of a new book. Then I hit a wall and I creep and crawl for a long time, and change my mind a lot. I plan some, but too much pulls the plug on things. Eventually things gel, and clarity or panic - or both - takes over and I can fly through a book like a rocket. But that's usually the last third of a book.
The motivating force of deadlines:
I've tried to be more structured and a steady producer, but I'm a hare, not a tortoise. And I have Uranus square the Sun, so that brings in a bit of lightning toward the end. Not good for routine. <g>
Handwriting or not?
For me the thing that's worked the best is going back to handwriting first. I have much less hesitation or doubt when I'm handwriting. It's like being back at school, when there was an exam and you just started and. .. the words flowed.
So it's rough, but it flows. Then when I type it up, I'm editing as I go, so it's not too bad. I tried reading it onto the computer using one of those dictating programs, but apart from the laughs courtesy of the bizarre mistakes the dictation program makes, I've decided typing a scene up after handwriting it is my best editing process.
Thanks for the suggestion, I’ve also read that the brain functions a little differently when one handwrites as opposed to typing. I’ve tried it a bit, but not enough to know yet whether it will help. I intend to experiment more when I get myself into the next project.
Handwriting just doesn't work for me. Maybe it's because I can barely read my writing? The words don't have as much 'power' in handwriting for some reason.
But I keep the laptop by my bed and wake up in the middle of the night and catch a scene that way. Good writing comes to me in the middle of the night. I think my subconscious is smarter than I am.
Yellow legal pads and colored pens - that works to get bunches of ideas down fast. When I start a book thought, I always start out with a fresh notebook - like a composition book or a spiral notebook. I keep one going for every book I write, sort of journaling the book as I go. I can go through three or four notebooks. Ideas, thoughts, ruminating, flashes of scenes and dialogue, ideas that go somewhere, ideas that go nowhere, and research points that I don't want to forget.
If I'm looking for something, it's in one of those notebooks somewhere, and that helps too as things get more complex.
Writing in public places or in private?
I work well in the buzzy, noisy, move-y space of a cafe. Just enough music in the background to be energizing, but played low enough for me to ignore. Jazz by preference.
There’s NO way I could work in a cafe or bar, as you mentioned you do. Just goes to show — different processes!
Me three, I can't work in public places either, cafes, restaurants, on trains, on planes, even in libraries. I am too highly distractible. It's challenging to work in my own house when it's in grand central station mode. I want to know what's going on ...
My husband focuses really well in these situations. He says it's like white noise to him. Er, not me.
I thought like that too, for a long time, but a few years ago I took myself off to the country for a week -- just myself, to try to get stuck into a book. And on the way back, I stayed a night in the state capital before catching a flight home. The next morning I had to get out of the hotel by 10 or 11, and my flight wasn't until 5, so I wrote in the hotel until the last gasp and went for a late breakfast in a cafe.
While I was waiting for my eggs, I had an idea for the scene and so pulled out my notebook and started writing it down. I ate my eggs when they came and kept writing. I had several coffees and kept writing. The lunch crowd started to arrive, so I left and found myself a table in a hotel beer garden -- and kept writing (sans beer.) I wrote like that all afternoon, moving to another place for a late lunch. I even wrote in the airport. That experience taught me that I could write anywhere.
Since then I regularly go to my local library to write — yes there are people and distractions around -- and it drives me wild when people have cell-phone conversations in the library -- but somehow, I can still write. Often better than I can at home, where the distractions are different.
For one thing there's a slight feeling of obligation when you're in public -- sitting and staring at nothing in a cafe or library starts to feel weird after a bit, so you tend to hunch over your wip to look busy... and soon, you are. I will often start by writing down some questions about the scene to come, or whatever, and then I'll answer them, and pretty soon I'm writing dialogue and a scene is taking place.
So maybe next time you find yourself staring at a screen or notebook, take yourself out somewhere and see what happens. As someone here said, mixing it up is good.
On writing in or out of the house, I wonder if it makes any difference whether we live alone? Some might interpret that as the person not alone needing to get out, but I'm thinking the other way. If the whole home is normally quiet and private then that quiet, private writing space isn't special, and a place with people and some noise might be special.
Anything in that?
I have written away from my writing cave, but very rarely. It's where it happens for me.
Anne again: This is only the first part of the discussion, but at 1400 words, I felt this blog was long enough. But interesting, I hope. Next time I'll share some more wenchly wisdom about some of the other ways we harness our creativity—particularly music. (BTW the pic above is of Daphne DuMaurier in her writing cave.)
What about you — if you're a creative type, what sets your muse going? Do you prefer to do your work in private or public (depending what work you do, of course—anyone for brain-surgery done in the local cafe? <g>) Do you find it easy to work or read in cafes or other public places? Does it annoy you when other people are working there? What do you do when you get stuck?