My Creative Writing Process - I’m Just Along For The Ride
This isn't your generic writing advice, and I have no idea if it would work for you. But it does wonders for me.
I have a specific writing process that confuses and surprises people, but I absolutely love it. You see, I don’t plan my writing. I don’t script it. I don’t think about it. I don’t create storyboards, regardless of whether I’m writing fiction or non-fiction. Any premeditation kills the creative juices within me and introduces the good old writer’s block.
Perhaps that is why I don’t enjoy being told what to write, although, like most of us, I have done it on occasion. The problem is that it feels fake, forced, and anything but fun and engaging. It’s just work, isn’t it?
My morning routine is simple. You’ve heard it a million times before.
I wake up at 5 AM and sit behind my computer. In the tranquility of that ungodly hour, I close my eyes and ask myself, “What do I want to write about today?”
If the answer doesn’t come up, I take a stab at one of the dormant drafts. Then I start typing away and see where that takes me. Sometimes, I follow the intended line of thought. Most times, though, I get derailed and end up with a few articles instead of one.
Writing your ideas as they come to you is crucial. Once the creative juices start flowing, you will receive ideas at every step. Use that flow and write down anything that would make a good story. I jog down a title and some bullet points.
I wrote my first and only published book after a difficult episode in my life. I was unemployed and unemployable, so I had oodles of time on my hands, with nothing to do. After having some creative fun in a forum one day, writing a short horror story, I got a bunch of compliments saying I should write a book. It honestly never even crossed my mind. I wrote some shitty poetry in my early days, ensuring I never saw the inside of a girl’s panties while in school. This time, I had nothing to lose. Anything was better than looking at those dreaded job adverts, so I gave it a go.
I like the story I ended up with, but I LOVED the one that was being written when I was just a passenger!
The process
The very next day, I sat on my sofa, closed my eyes, and meditated. I meditated on what I could possibly write about. At first, all was blank. It was a great meditation but not a hint of a story. When no solid ideas came, I began with a simple premise to see if that would get those illusive creative juices flowing. I did something similar in my younger years with drawing.
I closed my eyes again - I swear I keep them open occasionally - and imagined I had opened them somewhere else, as someone else. To my surprise, it worked! I tried not to narrate the story but kept asking myself:
Where am I?
Who am I?
Who or what is there with me?
What do I see, hear, feel, smell?
What happens next?
I made sure I wasn’t answering those questions with my rational mind and kept waiting to see, hear, or feel something - anything.
The strangest thing.
So I sat down, closed my eyes, and emptied my mind. I closed my eyes in this world and opened them in another. Then the story came to me.
As I didn’t answer those questions, something else inside me did. One image led to another and then another. It wasn’t in focus at first, but my vision cleared with time. I heard a scary sound somewhere in the distance. I felt a coldness underneath my skin. A foul smell permeated my mental nostrils. I sensed I was trapped! Ah, now we have the beginnings of a story - a scary story. Just the way I like it.
That story led my character, written in the first person, through an onslaught of challenges and tribulations across the Universe. Blood was spilled, limbs were broken, and eyes were salted with tears. He got away and was recaptured. He (I) was tortured. He fought, sometimes he did the slaughtering and other times he got his ass royally kicked. It was exhilarating! I was living the story. I was not the narrator, nor was I the writer. The story was written through me, with me as the main character and the observer.
I was watching a movie while being the character in that movie who just happens to have been documenting the whole thing. I never knew what would happen next! I didn’t know who I would meet in this world and what was waiting for me two acts further down the timeline. Heck, behind the next corner. In the present, I was being guided by someone or something writing that book through me.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t channel angels, aliens, or the word of God, but something within me awakens when I write fiction and takes over. I honestly never know where the story will lead my characters, and I prefer it that way. I love writing under this “flow.” Life and writing are all about being in the zone, not thinking but allowing the words to come to you. I was watching the most fascinating movie on the planet, and no one had any idea where it was going, especially me!
But Zed, shouldn’t you know if you’re the writer?
Probably, but I don’t, and if I try to mess with this process, I hit a brick wall! I did that with the above-mentioned book. After sixty-five pages, I looked at what the story was becoming and thought, “I can’t publish this! Ever! Holly shit, that’s insane!” I still giggle at that fantastic nonsense and the boldness of it all.
I should have killed that voice inside me. The creative pussy, the overthinker, the planer! I like the story I ended up with, but I LOVED the one that was being written when I was just a passenger! I wanted to know how that one would end. How the hell would my character escape the madness of the world he has been thrust into?
That story was a wild rollercoaster of lust, murder, mayhem, futility, destiny, and childish jokes, set in a dark world of abuse, torture, and desperation across the galaxy. No sense was made, and no fucks were given. It was poetry, albeit a nasty one. No, I still wouldn’t sign it, but I would have had a blast riding that story train with my readers.
My thinking stopped the creative flow and left me naked
Page sixty-five stared at me, haunting my dreams, reminding me of my cowardice.
Alas, it was not meant to be. I got scared and began thinking. It was the worst thing I could ever do. To think! What a scam! I began plastering the story with characters I didn’t love but felt would make it more relatable and exciting for the reader. I dialed the violence and sex down—first, a few dials, and then straight under the floor.
No one must know that I have such a dirty mind! What will my mother think of me when she reads it, for Crist’s sake? Turns out, she never would. It was too scary for her, and neither did my dad. “What is this weird crap? I don’t even know what is going on. Get a normal job, son!”
All that overthinking and caution was for nothing. I’ll never know if Frenk would have escaped the eight-legged alien mistress, to whom he was sold into sexual slavery, after his last failed escape before I neutered the story. The horror, the horror!
After cutting the balls of my story and toning it down, making it “presentable” to the public, I couldn’t write a single page for six whole months! I had written a hundred ideas of what the story could be, what characters I should introduce, and where the story could lead. Creating substories galore, I still wasn’t able to move my narrative further down the line. Page sixty-five stared at me, haunting my dreams, reminding me of my cowardice.
Overcoming the writing block
I had no other choice but to take a break. I read some other books. I applied to 274 more jobs, to no avail. I worked out as much as possible to get out of my mind without success. I dreaded facing those empty pages. Nothing worked until one day, I had a brilliant idea.
I asked myself: “What worked the first time around? Why wouldn’t it work again?”
So I sat down, closed my eyes, and emptied my mind. It took some attempts, but glimpses of a reawakening creative spark were begging to reveal itself. I decided to ease into it and write some side stories first. Just to get me started. Something irrelevant to reignite the spark of genius.
It didn’t happen instantaneously, but eventually, I was writing again. Side stories and backgrounds. Unrelated short stories, since forgotten, began the same way. I closed my eyes in this world and opened them in another. Then, I followed the breadcrumbs my inner creative spark was feeding me. A few of those stories would have made great epics had I continued to work on them.
I was writing again, and after I had some backstories, it was time to rewrite the whole damn book, as it just didn’t fit with the new narrative anymore. The wild, uncontrollable ride was over. Real work had now begun. I finished that cursed fiction and had fun doing it. In the end, it resulted in a good story with a twist.
Don’t worry. It’s coming in the form of a “serial.” Once I’m ready to commit to such a project. I’ve already translated it into English but have done zero editing. “Your work, just begone has,” Yoda would undoubtedly say.
To this day, I wish I had finished the original story, if only to toss it away or burn it for its profanity, insanity, and un-presentability. If I were the only one to have ever read it, it would have been enough. I crave to embark on such an outlandish ride once more. I call upon the Gods of creativity to bestow upon me the most rabid of their writers and offer them my hands as tools of their expression.
You should try it someday.
Close your eyes, empty your mind, and open them somewhere else, someone else, asking:
Where am I?
Who am I?
Who or what is there with me?
What do I see, hear, feel, smell?
What happens next?
Have fun exploring your imagination and allow yourself to write the craziest, most outlandish, and unreadable dribble. The first drafts always are. That’s the fun part over. Now, the real work begins in the dreaded edits.
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