Tag: fiction writing process

The Writing Moment

I’ve been sparking with new novel ideas. Concepts. Characters. Settings. You know. Novel stuff.

Nothing worked up enough energy to be a dance partner. Disappointment dressed in depression put in an ugly appearance.

Wait a second, I reminded myself. I have three other starts which I can pull up and fertilize and build into something. All were good concepts, pleasing to write, fun.

Also, self, your writing process has never been to figure it all out and then sit and write. You usually/almost always just write. Let it flow. Get out of the way of your thinking and just do it. So why are you trying to figure it all now? Dumb ass.

I acknowledged all this from my inner writer as true. So, okay. I decided I’d open a start and let it rip.

But instead, washing the windshield before departing for the coffee shop, a new seed from all that thinking sprouted. A new chapter positioned itself in my head. Setting, character, plot began growing out of that new sprout.

Sitting with coffee at hand, I punched out five pages in half an hour. A new novel was underway. Damn, it’s good to be a writer.

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Next

You’ve slip into another life, putting on their skins. You pick up on their words. Their thoughts and feelings float into you. You begin to appreciate who they are.

Surroundings emerge. The plot rises. Events become clearer with a sudden squirt. You’ve followed paths that you didn’t know existed. They twist into surprising turns. The characters become deeper than you’d known. Sharper edges develop on their worlds. Their love and pain quickens as their direction grows crisper.

You walk with them, feeling it all, wanting to cry, and sometimes laughing, standing aside as you witness their existence and embrace them. Insights into their relationships develop stronger pulses. Typing and thinking, picking through words, you strive to keep up the best that you can. Their lives and times overpowers yours, and then, you stop for the day and think with a soft, private sigh, I miss them.

And you wonder, will they be okay? What’s going to happen to them?

What’s going to happen?

You think you should know because you’re the writer, the artist behind these ideas, but really, you’re just transcribing. It’s all going on whether you write it down or not.

That’s what happens when you write like crazy.

 

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