“I had to dream awake”-The Frames
Writing is a mental game.
Whether you pile up a lot of interesting words and let that guide
parts of your story, or you construct a moment and hunt for the words
to do it justice, in the end we're still just talking about a lot of
words. And yet anybody who has ever started a serious writing
project knows the pain of staring empty-headed at an equally empty
page. It doesn't matter if you're on page 600 or page 1, this is a
very real and daunting challenge that can slow the whole process down
to a soul crushing crawl. So what the hell do you do to get yourself
out of it?
Try this.
Stop, relax, and think, but go somewhere else to do it.
'Prewriting'
is an absolute misnomer. Most people seem to think you prewrite
before you begin a project, and then you sit down without ever
looking back and fritter away until the thing is done. I don't even
think of it as prewriting, I think of it as sketching.
Dry on ideas before, during, or after a draft? Sit down, let your
mind breathe, and sketch a bit.
Here's
what I do. I turn my computer off and I go sit down somewhere else.
This is a really basic mental trick. The goal is to break the
unfocused, no ideasy, falling feeling I get sitting in my writing
chair without writing for too long. I have a pad and a pen with me.
I have a pen because I'm not going to be erasing anything. If I
write something dumb (often I insist on it), I can just scratch it
out. I want to work dirty here. This is me kicking around in my
workshop. Anyway, writing is actually the last thing on my mind.
I'm sitting down to think. We all start writing because we tire of
only day dreaming, or having thoughts pop through our head like
sparks form a downed power line. Well, this little process is a
return to form. Its just a bit of directed day dreaming.
Thomas
Edison used to do this same sort of exercise to work his way through
problems and come up with new inventions. He used to sit with two
tin pans on the floor and ball bearing in his hands. He would relax,
clear his head out, quiet down. Then he would start turning over
whatever he had laying around in his brain. If he started to drift
off, the ball bearings would drop into the pans and wake him up. So
there he would be, hopefully with a clear head and maybe a new idea.
I think Edison's routine was a little more meditative than I'm
suggesting, but it is equally as apt, and probably worth practicing.
Start
asking yourself some questions and feel your way around a few
answers. There's no stakes here, you're just sketching, so anything
is fair game. Sound it out. Short term, long term, it doesn't
matter. Make a few choices, follow the line of thought, and if you
don't like where it leads, cross that one off and start in on
another, stealing any of your own ideas and mixing them up any which
way you like. Don't be afraid to change your mind. Write a bunch of
words down about how a scene should feel, or a setting, or a
character. Which words stick? If you get some lines that feel right
as you build a particular scene in your mind, jot those down and keep
thinking. Stay focused.
The point is to let your mind range, but not wander.
Now
that you've got a few ideas you like, and a better sense of where
you're going, at least for the moment, you should feel more confident
sitting down at the keyboard. Now just write it out, and know if it
doesn't land quite right, you can just revise it later. Tune up the
sketch, yeah? Better by degrees.
Try
it.
p.s.
No comments:
Post a Comment