In a similar manner, I’ve also used the approach of just writing (typing) as rapidly as I can a “stream of consciousness” just to get things out of my head. First draft doesn’t have to be pretty, perhaps not even written to outline if inspiration strikes you can capture it and then reorganize and edit later. Same thoughts as others mention here.
Yeah, that’s a great way to do it too. Getting the ideas out fast without judging them makes editing way easier later. You can shape messy writing into something good, but you can’t edit a blank page.
Eggzackly.
There are some truly excellent observations above and I note that you should pay particular attention to @pigfender. From reading his contributions, here, over the years he knows somefin about this stuff. ![]()
When you say you are distressed your words do not match your imagination you’re expressing the fundamental problem for a writer. It’s not just you. Too often, the response to this is to edit before you even have something to edit. I very much like the suggestions for using dictation preferably while walking in sunny glades. You know? When you talk to the trees they aren’t judgmental. . . . You get things going without the temptation to edit as you go. Now, with modern technology this is trivially easy—phone and earphone/microphones and you’re done—but you can now run your recordings through voice recognition and get text that is much easier to organize and mash about.
I had terrible trouble writing throughout high school and college. Failed courses because I couldn’t write the papers. It only started to loosen up in my last year of college. But then, some years later, I was working as a typesetter and then editor at a big trade book publisher. It completely cured me. Why? Because I would see ms come-in from established authors and after the copy editors got through with them they were covered with red! Every damn page. Now, these were trade books not high literature so the writers weren’t expert writers they were experts in other things that could write well-enough. When the occasional manuscript appeared from a writer-writer it was heaven for all of us. But day after day I was driven to realize perfect prose on your first draft, book, or tenth book isn’t necessary and editors are your best friends . . . so just write already. The more you write the less the red but that’s not the important thing. Seeing red before you even get the start of a story is, er, counter-productive. ![]()
Dave
My writing is historical non-fiction - used for providing a different perspective on some modern medical issues, at the moment mainly ‘mental health’. The work depends on finding insightful connections, which now happen on a nicely regular basis (I’ve been doing this for a quarter of a century) but there’s no way at all I could get them recorded under normal writing conditions. As they often happen early in the morning - just as I wake up sometimes - I keep an A4 pad and pencils by my bed on which I write as many of the ideas as I can - just as titles at times - and draw the connections. I find myself going back to that pad quite often during a good day to add further ideas and connections. The next stage is adding the A4 content to Scapple which clarifies the ideas further and often prompts further ideas and connections. I then import the Scapple file (alias) itself to the Research Folder of a Scrivener document, and the notes into the Binder for further elaboration. A day or so with the A4 pad, a couple of hours with Scapple, and then whatever time I want to take to write up the prose (and perhaps read further) for each idea/connection. This has tamed my butterfly mind (which flew me nicely out of academia) to the extent that my ideas have (I like to think) become more creative, and not just academically ‘productive’. Maybe this isn’t appropriate for genuine fiction - but it might just work to capture ideas for which handwriting or keyboard are too slow.
A
Thanks for sharing your process and insights. I’m a retired engineer whose formal writing was all technical writing. Over the years I learned to capture ideas when I’d wake up in the middle of the night or just before rising. I’d use either use a small notebook or notecards and it did help me get ideas down and often into the process of use similarly to yours. I wish my process had been as thoughtful as yours for structured progression. I have something now I do that is a little more aligned with your own and I continue to look for ways to improve it. I appreciate your sharing.
I’ve come to think that imagination and writing are two different mediums. A scene can feel perfect in your head because it isn’t limited by words yet. The trick, for me, is accepting that the page is an interpretation of the idea, not a copy of it.