Tag: writing

Are There Methods in the Madness of Writing?

4 Comments
Cup

My favorite writing accessories: coffee and moleskine

I’ve been in a business/management environment for the better part of a decade and I can’t help but think in terms of following best practices, finding strengths and opportunities, and creating action plans to leverage found strengths against any opportunities (aka, areas of weakness, but no one likes to say “weakness”). I do this unconsciously, and constantly analyze and re-analyze various scenarios in order to arrive at the results I want, hopefully becoming more efficient, more effective with each project.

I’ve been thinking recently about how to finish my story in the most effective manner possible. Of course, I am familiar with the stayinyourseatandtype writing method, and the don’tlookatbrightandshinyfacebooktwitteryoutube avoidance techniques. Those address the problems of discipline, work ethic and focus: all very important, but not necessarily what I’m thinking about at the moment. It’s more like I want to know best practices, methods and techniques that other writers have employed to get them from one scene to another, eventually stringing all the pretties together into a finished story.

I’ve mentioned before that I have completed my plot outline of the major points of the novel. So, here I am plodding along, filling in the blanks between the points of that plot outline. But, I have been wondering recently: should I keep writing straight through the story as it is laid out chronologically (per my plot outline), or would it be more effective (or at least equally effective?) to write out some of those “fun” scenes, those major plot points, and then write in the transition scenes later on?

I’ve read that “writing to” something helps to iron out what those little, in-between scenes need to be, especially important if I need to hide clues or throw red herrings in along the way (though I’m not to that point in the story yet). I know for me, I had a glimpse of another chapter of my character’s life (basically the beginning of a potential other book, though I don’t want to put the cart before the horse, so I’ve chosen to call it “chapter”), and it looked like so much fun, that it helped me to outline and plot the novel toward that point. Plus, it just made sense to see how the BIG picture ends.

But, I still have a nagging little voice in my head that tells me if I touch those big scenes first, then I will lose the motivation/fire/passion to write the rest of the scenes. I know it’s silly, and I’ve come a long way from that mindset, but it’s still there.

cute cuddly with the potential for scary...yup, that's my muse

I know there’s no right way to go about this per se, and that the best method is the one that keeps me writing. So, let’s just call this inquiry my overwhelming, insatiable need to know things, and you get to help me learn more about the creative process. What method do you use in your madness, and why do you like it? The jittery, caffeine addicted gremlin that is my muse would like to know.


What Music Inspires…

1 Comment
"These Black Lines"

Image by shifty eyes. via Flickr

I love to work out with great music; I feel that a lot of times, the right music helps to increase my focus, intensity, and overall determination to finish the task at hand.  So it is with my writing.

Overall, I have different types of music for different types of writing.  For example, my “wake up, morning writing” is set to Snow Patrol and Dashboard Confessional.  I just think it’s amusing that my current writing project relies heavily on my Disturbed station on Pandora Radio.

So, just for fun…the following is on heavy rotation on my Pandora Radio “Disturbed Station”:

Disturbed: “The Game”; “Indestructible”; “Divide”; “Another Way to Die”; “Fear”; “Pain Redefined”

Linkin Park: “Given Up”; “Breaking the Habit”; “Hit the Floor”; “Bleed it Out”

Shinedown: “Fly from the Inside”; “Sound of Madness”

Godsmack: “Fully Awake”; “I Stand Alone”; “Voodoo”

Korn: “Coming Undone”; “Freak on a Leash”; “Shoots and Ladders”; “Twisted Transistor”

Flyleaf: “I’m So Sick”; “Fully Alive”

Three Days Grace: “Pain”

Sick Puppies: “You’re Going Down”

Drowning Pool: “Tear Away”

Metallica: “Fuel”; “Enter Sandman”; “Master of Puppets”

Don’t worry.  My story isn’t about death, destruction, or mayhem (though I’m not saying it doesn’t contain these things… 😉 ).  I think the music though helps me in the act of writing; to keep going and give me the drive to finish, as if I were in my squat rack, or the last interval of a high-intensity interval training run.  Plus, it helps give amazing focus, by shutting out the rest of the world, and clarity, as if my subconscious is suddenly open and available to me.

With that said, time to turn Pandora Radio on, and dream of my worlds.

Behind Closed Doors

2 Comments

“Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right — as right as you can, anyway — it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it.”

Stephen King, On Writing

My hubs has teased me before about shutting him out of my writing; that I don’t want him or anyone else to read my writing. It’s not that I care if anyone reads my work (I have a public blog, after all), nor that I need or want to shut anyone out. It’s more like I need to shut myself in. I need to keep all these ideas and glimpses from flying away from me, and so I need to have a way to focus and get those captured into words before forgetting.

It’s a bit like describing a dream when you just woke up, which is the reason why I call my creative process active dreaming, or describe my writing as dreaming up my words and worlds. When I’m able to capture it via stream of consciousness writing, I feel so much better that I was able to get those words out. They are now in the real world, maybe not whole, but there, and I can flesh out ideas later.

But, when I’m not able to put those thoughts into words, and they go to limbo never to be remembered again, I feel like I’m dying inside. You know that feeling when you’re having a conversation with someone, and you forget what you were just about to say? You shrug it off during the conversation and say that you’ll remember it later, but then the whole time your friend is talking, you keep saying, “what was I going to say?” and the whole conversation becomes this meaningless exercise in remembering what you wanted to say. The frustration you’re feeling is a fraction of what I feel, because I don’t eventually remember what it is I wanted to capture. And, I feel like I failed my world in a way.

Though I know it will take a lot of work to create the scenes that I need, now that I have the story plotted, I feel like it’s more anchored in this world. I can be interrupted more, because it’s easier to recall and play with things that are “real.” I can pick up where I was interrupted because it’s right there in front of me, like a photograph, and all I need are better words to make it three-dimensional.  It has changed from being subconscious to conscious.  And, shaping and re-shaping something is a whole lot easier than starting from nothing.

Plodding Along, Plotting My Novel

2 Comments

Unbelievably, and against all odds, I finished a rough outline of my story.  Tons of paper, both notebook and plain computer, collaborated together to create my story in visual.  Well, more like a plot timeline, with major scenes as the heading.  Looks kind of like a police detective white board.  At least, as portrayed by Detective Beckett on Castle.

I was trying to figure out how to get from one scene to the other, and I found that minor plotting only helped me so far.  Now that I made writing a serious goal in my life, I felt the need to employ any and every method to help set me up for success.  And, even though in the past, outlining only helped to fizzle out my passion for my story, I decided to get over it, and write anyway.

Oh, and I would also like to add, that the story that I am currently working on was a story that I had originally plotted almost in full last year, but ended up pushing it aside by the end of last summer.  But, with my new dedication to focus on my priorities in life, came new perspectives and plots that I didn’t think about earlier, and I was able to capture the whole story this time without losing the “creative spark.”  I will keep fanning that flame, and working toward my goal even if the spark of the moment fizzles out.  I know it will only be a temporary set back.

Plotting through the whole book was a minor step in the grand scheme of finishing a novel, but still a step in the right direction, and I will take it.

Next up, writing a synopsis scene by scene, through each of my POV characters, interspersed with writing out actual scenes.  I’m still debating on whether to use first-person perspective, third person single perspective, or third person multiple perspective.  I will report back on which I used, but in the meanwhile, am open to opinions on which is preferable to use in a high-concept, YA fantasy.

Polihale beach

Out, Out!

Leave a comment

So, as I was typing out some of my pages from my notebook, I realized that the story that I was dreaming of last year came surging back like an all-consuming tidal wave.

Instead of increasing the storyline of the one I was working on for the last few weeks, I started from a different point of view on last year’s story.  (The one I lost interest in because I basically plotted my way through the whole story.)  I still have my notes and history and verbiage from that story, too.  It’s kind of cool, because I remembered the lingo so well, that the words came out very naturally.  Of course, that means I basically start from scratch, but I think since I have a bigger view of this story, and the end is basically in sight (albeit, 95,000 words away), I can plod on like a little workhorse and power through the loose outline that I have.

My goal right now is to finish a story, and get all these clamoring voices out of my head before anyone can suspect me of being a little off (though, it’s too late for my hubby!  He’s stuck with me as is!).  That would be an indicator of success for me.  I understand that my first, second, etc, novels may never get published, and so with each story, I would hope that my novel-writing skills would improve.  I won’t even begin to worry about my (lack of) publishing status until I have at least 3 stories finished.

I think Stephen King said that you had to write about a million words of crap before you can start to write well.  In Outliers, the magic number was 10,000 hours of practice to get to perfect.  Well, my current journey is trying to get those 10,000 hours in and 1 million words out.