Saturday 9 June 2012

A new approach to writing.

I have been writing, in fact, I have been writing a lot. I have been in the groove so to speak. It all started last weekend, the Jubilee weekend, I was totally on my own for most of it as my children had gone off to various places so I decided to get to grips with Trafficking. I have been walking round and round it without actually really getting down to the writing. Really engaging with it. It was time to change this. I had my denouement. I knew what my characters looked like. I had a change of setting and I had two chapters.

I made a weekend of it and I took Martin Scorsese's advice - he suggests you need to know the past in order to create the new. (Check out this blog post from back in 2010)  I watched a couple of films and read some books in order to remind me of what I liked and what I wanted to achieve. And then I started. I was really lucky the words just flowed. All the images in my head just fell onto the page and  in four days I managed to write just over 16,000 words and 11 chapters with all the rest clearly forming in my head as I wrote. This is the first time it has been such a complete process. In part I think it is down to the amount of pre-writing thinking I have done which has helped form the story so totally.

There was another difference this time though. I am a tinkerer or I was. As I wrote I would go back and change things. Fiddle with them slightly until they were right but this always stopped the creative process. It was like a hiatus, so this time I decided to keep writing regardless. If I thought of something I put it in my notebook under a list of things to check and/or change. For example I wrote a chapter last night which I know is too long (it has been so hard not to go back to it) but I am going to wait until the end and I have the whole picture to see how I want to change it. I also know I need to add more sense of place and more character detail. As I have said to you before I write cold, getting the story down, and then go back and fill in the colour. It is actually quite liberating to just get the story down and not stop. I am now over 22,000 words and the ideas are still flowing easily. I do wonder if this is because I have changed my method of writing. Whether it is or it isn't I am relieved and delighted. When it flows like this it is a wonderful place to be. Long may it last

This was the theme tune to my writing, Paul Buchanan's album Mid Air

13 comments:

  1. what a feeling! I tihnk that's a song as well. I think you're right about the pre-thinking. David Almond once said he wrote one of his novels - can't remember which now - in 1 month because he'd thought about it so much beforehand,like a good mulching. Long may your story flow, Ness, in fact, write to the end!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. Addy what a wonderful description - a good mulching. I think you are so right, it is all about feeding the story by giving it time to develop. Good to know David Almond has done it too.

      Delete
  2. Sounds amazing ... and David Almond's mulching sounds right to. The thing with me is as I write the characters decide to do something else then screw up all my plans. Damn those characters.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have had that trouble with my characters too in the past. I am waiting to see if I get the same problem as the story develops. It can really through you. I must be honest it is an amazing feeling

      Delete
  3. I'm glad it is going so well for you Ness, you'll be finished this draft before you know it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Amanda. I am hoping so then I can work on those niggling things!

      Delete
  4. I had that same problem, of trying to edit each sentence before I'd even reached the full stop. Took a while to break the habit, but now even the most glaring obvious of mistakes get left in the text until it's all finished, otherwise the flow of the story gets broken. Besides, what are first drafts for, if not making a hell of a lot of mistakes that need fixing?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is quite hard to do though isn't it Rewan?!

      Delete
    2. Painfully so! I had to resort to training a small poisonous scorpion to sit on the backspace key so I couldn't delete a thing...

      Delete
  5. Well done, Ness! I'm so glad it's gone well. I tried this with my current project, Eleven Day, writing the first draft in 11 days straight before the London Book Fair. I need to do lots of research and there were bits were I just and had to leave gaps (what animals were in the Vatican menagerie in 1582? anyone know?) But it is very liberating, isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. You are so right, it is amazingly liberating. I am glad you have done it too, I don't feel quite so crazy now. I know, as you say, it will need lots of work but am really enjoying the lack of interruption. Writing a first draft in eleven days is incredible. Am not sure I could do it that quickly but I do want to try and get a first draft done by the end of June. We will see...

      Delete
  6. How fantastic! You must be so thrilled. May the words continue to flow! x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Sue. I am hoping it keeps flowing too! How is the writing going for you at the moment?

      Delete