Once Upon a Time, in a Kingdom Far Away, a Writer Sat in a Corner of the Castle...and Agonized

How I Write

There's a monthly column I enjoy in one of the writing magazines I subscribe to. In each issue, a well-known author describes his or her own particular way of going about creation. I thought it would be a fun subject to blog about. I'm not well known, but I'll go first anyway. And if any one else likes the idea, she can take a turn too. I mean, what a perfect way to overcome a severe case of blogger's block -- should that affliction ever strike one of you -- just shake it off and keyboard about your own quirky writing styles.

The dream or idea:
The seeds of my stories often sprout from dreams. My WIP involves villainous dogs, and grew out of a nightmare I had in September.

To those of you who don't, remembering dreams may seem romantic. But there's nothing lovely about most of my dreams, which is probably a big reason why I write suspense. In my night-time visions, faceless villains often chase me. They usually wield knives or guns. I don't know how many times I've dreamed of being shot in the stomach, of all places. It knocks me back, but never kills me (and luckily enough, never hurts or bleeds) so I am free to dream of being chased again and again. Even the ability to flap my arms and fly as high as rooftops just barely keeps me out of the grasp of the bad guys who run along below and grab at my legs and feet. But, wow, am I getting off track here...

The Stewing:
Once the idea presents itself, I mull on it for awhile. If it grows and changes and becomes a living thing, nagging in the back of my head, knocking and refusing to go away, I fiish writing it. If it quiets down and goes peacefully to bed in a forgotten file buried inside my Compaq, I let it stay there, locked up and unfinished.

The First Stack of Crap:
Then comes the first draft. A very, and I stress VERY here, rough outline, which is the crappiest of all crappy first drafts. No one is ever allowed to read this mush pile.

If I was a plotter, maybe I could avoid the self-humiliation of this first rough draft, but I am not one for methodical plotting or outlinging. I've tried it. And all it does is dry up my creative flow.

Back to the Beginning:
Then it's time to start at square one and make the crap prettier. As I've mentioned before, for me, the beginning has to be set with tone, character, attitude, and a strong hook before I can move forward more than a few baby steps. I have labor pains far into some nights, agonizing over the first few paragraphs. Once those are down though, I can write like the wind. Well, let's be honest here, I can write like a gentle breeze, with an occasional mediocre gust.

Intruding Thoughts and Ideas:
As I go along, trying to write on my merry way, bits of back story, big chunks of useless information that, never-the-less, may prove useful in the future -- character sketches, descriptions, bits of setting, you get the idea -- stuff that is too goood to throw away, but is in the way at the moment, I cut and paste to the top of the story file. (Chapter one of the book I'm currently babnging out doesn't start until page 22). Some of that useless, but remotely-possibly-someday-useful stuff, has been dropped into the actual body of work by this time. A lot of the rest of it will wither and die right where it is and I will delete it before I finish the polishing process. But more on that in a minute.

As for the chunks of the story that I later decide don't belong where I wrote them? I move those bits to the end of the file. They too will either get eventually used or completely dropped. Also at the end, in a sort of journal, I note things like daily word count, good or bad writing news, how I'm feeling at a particular point in the story, or important personal events happening in my real life. If I feel stumped by the story, sometimes just writing about my own emotions will unblock me and I can get back to the real WIP.

In the meantime, I still continue to dream at night about being chased by cannibals, masked men and that nerdy boy who had a crush on me back in high school. These dreams intrude on my work in progress. So, I shut them up by writing them down in one of several files labeled "Ideas" and then impound them into that dusty corner of my conputer, where they can scuffle with one another, inbreed, manifest, do whatever the hell it is they do in there, until I'm invested enough n my current project to know I'll finish it, no matter what. If, during the third or fourth draft of my WIP, I get a little bored, I may let a couple of the scuffling ideas out their cage for an entertaining run through the jungle.

The Finished Product:
I fiddle and faddle and fart with my story a lot before I let anyone see it. I want it to be fully formed before I send out birth announcements. I am slow at this part. Well, let's be honest here, I am slow at all the parts, but I'm getting faster. Now it's time to send it to my CPs and my aunt, who is my beta reader. When I get back their comments, I consider the changes they suggest. I often think on this for a couple weeks, while I am on pseudo-vacation from the story. After 10 or 14 days, I can come back with a fresh eye and decide whose suggestions may have merit, and who is way out in left field, gloveless and without a clue.

Now it's time to really finish the work (if it can ever be called finished, although we all agree it can definitely be called work) delete all the crap I didn't use and make sure it's formatted properly.

Then comes the dreaded synopsis.

But formatting and writing synopsis are fodder enough for two more blogs, both of which I'll let other writers wrestle down and pin. The latter is best tackled by out own Alice, the synopsis diva.

So, does any of this ring true for you? How do your ideas come to you? In the shower? While driving? Feel free to save long comments about how you write for your own blogging slot. I would love to read, in detail, about everyne else's process.