Tag: organic writing

The Writing Processes

I enjoy reading about other writers and their processes. I’m primarily reading for ideas that I can incorporate or adapt into my processes, but I’m also curious about others’ takes on their creative processes. I’m often amused when people insist that writers must outline, or something like that. I tried outlining; it didn’t work for me. I felt that outlining drained the fun and creativity from my writing processes.

I was thinking about this today because I reached a pivot point. Writing organically, I’m journeying without a map. I like journeying without a map. I feel like an explorer crossing a new continent. Explorers decide, “There’s the sun; we’re following this river and heading that way for now. Let’s see where it goes.” I adapt that as, “There’s the ending; we’re following this path heading that way for now. Let’s see where it goes.”

Sometimes, as accounts of explorers will tell you, wrong turns are taken. Blind paths that lead to nowhere are followed. Yet, it’s not a loss, because they’ve expanded their body of knowledge.

That happens with me and my characters, too. They take a turn none of us expected. I don’t just follow then, though. I stop and ask, “Wait a moment. Where is this going? Are we sure we want to follow this path?”

As I’m also a non-linear writer, I’ll sometimes take a few days to write about other aspects while I think over the new potential path. By non-linear, I mean that I don’t write the novel in the order that the story is told, nor in the order of its final finish. I’m usually filling in expository bridges between action scenes during these periods. Action scenes, being sharper and more intense, come quickly, like a flash flood. In fact, I call it flash writing. A sudden inspiration strikes. It follows the general sense already created, so I let the flood happen. Other flash floods often occur in sequence as these major points are seen and grasped. After writing down their essentials, I edit and polish them, add details, and make changes for coherency and consistency.

By that point, they’re raw pearls. I want a necklace. Bridge scenes help me strand them together.

Sometimes, I make huge leaps. There’s an epiphany, and I spring forward to write it before I lose it. This is when I most feel like the novel already exists, and I’m just taking dictation.

Meanwhile, I write posts like this to help me understand what I think. As I thought about this little post and wrote it, my subconscious mind thought over the new piece and offered me some tent poles.

That caused a short interlude here as I explored the tent poles. I came to see how this new piece wasn’t all that new, but a latent piece I’d previously ignored. Indeed, I’d made a small reference to it once, back in the first volume’s first quarter. I’d flash-written some scenes without thinking about how to strand them together, but subconsciously, pieces were being put together. I just needed to remain persistent, let my mind work, accept what it gave me, and go for it. That, I think, sums up the whole writing like crazy philosophy.

I’ve got my coffee. Its smell helps me focus, its caffeine stimulates my creative energies, and it’s a component of my writing session routine. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Unfolding

Some days, when I sit down to write, the words flood out. Other times, they come with a gentle patience, like a flower’s petals unfolding, but with a little more speed.

They’re both enjoyable means to an end.

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Stalling

I was stalling this morning. I knew what I wanted to write. Several scenes were queued in the writing stream, ready for release.

But I was stalling. Why? I like to think I was limbering myself. So I checked news, stocks, sports, weather…idling my writing mind, passing time…ahem, stalling. 

I know some of the stalling was due to uncertainty. While I knew these scenes, I wrestled with another aspect of the trilogy. That sort of excursion always slows me, no matter what project I’m working

My stalling ended abruptly with one line that I read:

“Browns find out how far down the rabbit hole goes”

A new angle of dialogue and thought were ignited. Like that, I went from stalling to impatiently writing.

Then I paused to write about it and share it with you.

I asked myself about that: why was I posting about it? But writing’s point for me it to help me think about what I was doing, and why I was doing it. I spare you deeper words and insights, because I’m writing for me, and doing just enough to unleash my thinking.

Okay, time to write like crazy, at least one more time, even if it is a new year.

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The Pacing

So here I am, forced to pace around the coffee shop again, because I can’t keep up with the speed of thinking and typing. Words are firing at me like a Gatling gun is at work.

I’m writing the third book of the Incomplete States trilogy, and I love its direction, but then my mind snaps back to book two, and I think, I need to add this, this, and this to book two.

That’s when I’m set into pacing in an effort to separate thinking about the two books, and organize thoughts and define changes to the plots and arcs. I catch glimpses. That’s sufficient for now, because I know that I can walk away, and let my brain work on it, and when I come back, it’ll provide answers and directions about what I need to do and how to go about it

Now, though, done. Spent. I want to keep writing, but I understand that I must balance that enjoyment and activity with the rest of living and being. So, time to stop writing like crazy.

For now.

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River of Words

Coffee is cold. A quarter of the cup remains. Writer’s butt has set in. Hunger pangs trouble my stomach. Time to drink down the last dregs of cold coffee and head home to fill other needs and fulfillment.

It’s been an invigorating day of writing like crazy. Like, the stream of words is a swollen, raging river of scenes. I just needed to dip in and hang on. Third book of the Incomplete States trilogy is taking shape. The first drafts of the first two books are being mildly reshaped to fit what else is developing. Excitement pushes me to keep writing, keep writing, but pragmatism says, stop for now. Don’t worry. The river of words will keep flowing.

Cheers

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Beta Chapter

A chapter was ‘completed’ yesterday. It was one of five chapters in progress in this portion of telling the story. I often work like this, because events happen in parallel, or results from one chapter affect the others.

Finishing the chapter, I didn’t think of it as a first draft as much as I thought of it as an alpha version. Playing with that idea, I decided a chapter isn’t a draft until the whole novel is completed as a draft. Beta is better, because it’s pretty complete, but subject to other possible changes, unknown at the point of first completion, because I’m an organic writer, and I don’t know what else is going to happen. Things that happen later can often force changes to chapters and scenes already written.

Calling it beta is something that just came to be yesterday, stolen from the software development world. Once I completed that chapter, I walked around, mumbling to myself, “Now what? What comes next?” I had no idea. The chapter was done, a pivot point established, and I no clue where it was pivoting to. Yes, I know the book’s ending, and how the trilogy ends, but that’s like saying that you know what a country is like because you know the country’s shape.

Coming in to write this morning, I still didn’t know was to happen. Walking, I distracted myself by thinking of other things, like cryptocurrency and politics. Then pop –

Write this. This will demonstrate that. Then write this, and this, and this.

Suddenly I had a chain of beginnings and kernels of scenes. Computer fired up, coffee swallowed, I bent my head and typed streams of words. New alpha chapters were started. One of them reached beta. Even as I wrote them, I saw another pivot developing, but could not quite see how it all fit together. But, as I’ve learned, it’s best for me not to worry myself about it, but just to write to it. Writing to it will take carry me forward as needed. I don’t seem to consciously understand what’s happening, but on some sub-conscious level, the words and scenes are all known, like the book is already written somewhere else, and I’m just opening the pages and copying them.

Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But it works. I’ll take it.

It’s odd, but I want to keep writing because it’s been fun and productive, and I feel like I’m riding a terrific wave, yet, my writer’s sense is telling me to stop. So, I’ll acquiesce to that voice.

Great day of writing like crazy. Time to go eat lunch.

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Messy Creativity

After yesterday’s writing like crazy session, I walked away preoccupied by the random messiness. It’s like, I’m baking a cake and have some of the ingredients, but I’m not sure which ones I have, and what else is needed.

Or, it’s like debugging code without knowing where you’re at in the program.

It’s like walking through a strange room in the dark with little idea about which way to go.

Yes, I’m a pantser when it comes to writing. I’m an organic writer. Unscripted, or semi-scripted. I suppose the outlining writing tribes would tell me, “Outlining can solve your problems.”

That’s perhaps true, but I like my messy creative process. It’s fun to be surprised by a scene’s direction. I have no doubt that writers that outline will say, “Having an outline doesn’t mean that you can’t be surprised by what you write and how a scene turns out.”

Okay, you have me there. I just like the messy process. That’s one possibility. The second is that I’m not patient enough to write an outline. I become too impatient. Likewise, perhaps I’m too undisciplined to use an outline. More likely, it’s all of these things. But I believe that after trying to write outlines first, and suffering, I just stumbled on this messy process, and find it works. In the end, what works is what matters.

Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Beautiful and Terrifying

In today’s writing metaphor, I’m weaving a trilogy.

I’ve been writing here in the coffee shop for two hours. I still have three-quarters of my drink remaining.

Sitting down to write, I opened a floodgate to the dam of words – sorry, another metaphor – and they gushed out. Again came an unanticipated scene, and a surprising pivot. With it came more tangible substance about the third novel, and what’s to happen in it. And with that, I began writing the third novel of the “Incomplete States” trilogy (previously known as “Long Summer”). Still have some to write with the first novel to complete the initial draft, though. I was reluctant to do it, and that’s when the weaving metaphor arrived.

Novel three didn’t have a working title. Creating the Word doc, I just called it Book Three. I didn’t want to slow down to think of a title. I just wanted to get those words into the computer. Between books one and three, I wrote one chapter in book one, and the kernal of a chapter in book three, about thirty-two hundred words total.

It’s been an excellent day of writing like crazy. It’s fucking exciting, even though it’s also sometimes beautiful but terrifying. I put it like that because I see and know the scenes and the arcs, but I don’t know the words and the details, and I worry that I’ll lose them before the trilogy is finished. It became such an intense experience that sometimes I needed to get up and walk around to vent enough energy to focus and type.

It’s fun and exciting, too, being in these stories with these characters, on vivid other worlds and starships. Sometimes, it feels like I’m there, experiencing it through them, and then returning to this life to record what happened. Crazy, right?

Yes. I guess that’s a side-effect of writing like crazy.

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While

While I looked out the window.

And studied the rainbow.

And thought about rainbows and the myths and science about them.

And admired its beauty.

While sleep was still being chased away.

And thoughts frolicked with dream remnants.

And the day’s planned activities opened in my mind like a hand of cards.

And I thought about making the first cup of coffee.

While I thought about what I was going to do today.

And what I needed to do.

I turned to my computer, and opened my file.

The file of the section of the novel in progress I’m working on.

And I typed.

A hundred words.

Five hundred.

One thousand.

Twelve hundred.

Fifteen hundred.

Then the scene was done.

And I reviewed what I’d written.

And closed the file.

And while I thought about what I’d just written.

And what was to be written.

And what it meant for what was already written.

I went to make my morning coffee.

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