8.28.2010

My writing process is torture

Really.  If you are a writer then maybe you should stick around and share some knowledge with me. I need help because I think I'm some kind of crazy. On second thought, maybe not. I don't want anyone to be pick up bad habits from me. I'm realizing tonight that I have the WORST writing process in the world, and while it involves cupcakes, it also involves torture.

Endless. Inescapable. Torture.

What is it like? Ok. I'll tell you, even though it's hard to admit.

I get an idea and I write it down. I let it sit, stew in my mind. It develops, I play with it and write it down. The scenes are usually random and nothing that makes sense. I write when they (the characters) talk to me and write whenever something is there, pounding in my head. I eat a cupcake. I explore the characters, let their words come out on the paper. Sometimes, I sit and free write based off some of the scenes. I cry. I piece things together and seek out the missing links until it clicks into a storyline. I drink Mountain Dew. I plot, loosely of course because my characters need room to move. I write more and more. Mostly crap and sometimes something good that I keep and explore. Cry some more. Complain to my best friend who always listens even though she only half cares. I tweet. I eat another cupcake. I complain some more. And then, then, there is something to revise. (which will also probably involve cupcakes, Mountain Dew, crying and complaining. But there are always cupcakes.)

I think my characters plot against me: "I'll leave random lines strewn all about and you'll have to piece them together to figure out what happens." Like it's a game, a horrid, torturous game. 

Am I the only one who thinks that this is ridiculous?

I have tried other things. In college for my writing classes, I didn't do that much. I literally had an idea and wrote the whole thing--of course, they were short stories and not large manuscripts, not that it really matters. So, I have improved some. However, I have a long way to go I think.

I've tried tight plotting and micro plotting. I don't like it. I've tried interviewing my characters but I don't like either. I've tried writing in the same place, same time, same whatever and that doesn't really matter. Maybe this, in some crazy way, is what works for me. I sure hope not.  In the end, I guess it always works out. There's a story, which is the point. Characters and stories will be revealed in their own time and until then we are the tools they use to express themselves. I'm ok with that. I like it. I live for it.

I started a new project and I'm in the figuring out the characters and story part of the process. I was thinking that there had to be an easier way to do all of this but maybe there isn't. Ah well. I press on, in the company of my awesome pandora stations: Glee Cast station (for fun and character sketching) and Noah and the Whale station (for writing.) See? There are more good things to writing!

What is your process like? Am I the only one out there who feels crazy?!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for your comment!! I appreciate you stopping by! :)