So... I'm back to writing again.
It definitely feels good. It's been too long since I was working on a book, figuring out a plot, sharing my life with interesting characters.
My process, I'm finding, is changing quite a bit. Firstly, I have to make allowances for work. Before I began working, I would always write in the morning; starting before 8am, always ending sometime before 12. Now, I've found my inspiration hitting at work, and the various minutes between calls (sometimes 1 or 2, other times as many as 10) becoming my new writing schedule.
Another thing that is (quite drastically) different, is that I only just now decided to try outlining. Before, I just jumped right in and wrote, working the story out as I wrote it. That did work for me, in many ways, but in others I can definitely see where it was lacking. Sometimes I would get stuck for weeks trying to figure out "why are they doing this?", and that utterly kills inspiration.
I was always against outlines, I never wanted to spend the time, it always seemed like so much work... for what? Plus, I always wanted to just dive in and WRITE. However, I recently changed my mind. Or rather, someone changed my mind for me.
That who was Kathryn M. Weiland, and her book, Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success, (http://www.kmweiland.com/books_OYN.php). She makes a good argument for it... and it is really helping me so far!
It's really interesting to see my process modify itself to fit in my current life situation. I never thought I could change it before, but was pleasantly surprised to find it popped up when I least expected it!
So anyways, that's where I'm at, working on the rewrite of my 3rd novel, and trying out outlining for the first time... which is actually working really well at this point!
If you want to read Kathryn M. Weiland's blog, you can catch that here http://wordplay-kmweiland.blogspot.com/
Great post - and thanks for the link! I think it's hugely important for us to give ourselves permission to let our writing processes evolve. The demands of each novel and the demands of our life situations will influence the optimum process at any given point in time.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I definitely agree! Before, I didn't even know it was possible, like I had to somehow fit my previous schedule into my new work schedule (which would be very difficult at this point!), so I wasn't sure what to do. But it just started popping up when I didn't expect it, I found I could write during the intervals between calls just as well as if it were continuous. It's been interesting for sure, and I'm really glad I got ahold of your book! :-D That's been a really huge part of my newfound motivation.
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