Today, I am talking about my writing process and the frustration of losing (literally) an entire scene. I’ve done this more times than I would like to admit. You see, I have this process when writing, which I will detail shortly. Because I also have this little (depending on who you ask, some might say, HUGE) flaw – I’m kind of a mess, and I kinda forget where I put things, especially if I put it somewhere ‘safe’ so I don’t ‘lose’ it. So safe and secure, future me can’t even find it. To this flaw, I’ve lost several very important scenes. I re-create them well enough, sometimes I do eventually find the original and I’m often surprised to find I was pretty close in approximating what I had written previously. So, I try not to sweat it. But it’s that initial panic and anxiety as I’m tearing apart my house looking for the safely stored scene that I ‘know’ I wrote that really gets me. And often can affect the rest of my day. I imagine there are others out there who can relate to this, yes? I hope so.
Recently I was looking for a scene, I’m pretty sure I wrote out before, by that I mean, I’m very, fairly certain I wrote it, when this blog came to me – they (blogging experts) recommend you have a fair amount of blogs written out ahead of time so you are never late in posting and I do have about a month’s worth and some sketchy ideas, but usually around Sunday an idea comes to me that I would rather blog about. And that happened, and I didn’t want to use any of my already written content, (of which I think I’ve actually only used one so far) I wanted to write this blog, I wanted to write about my process even though by Monday I knew it was going to be late as I’d only started on the first half of this one by then. But, darn it, this is the blog that I’m posting this week. HAHAHA. I feel if I’m not being authentic, it’s not really worth it. At least not to me.
(That was meant to be a segue into my Process – this is how my brain works, so here goes)
My writing process – the physical process of creating my stories, goes something like this:
My roughest draft, I don’t usually even call it a first draft, it’s more a collection of thoughts and scenes that will make up my first draft after a bit of tinkering, is always hand written. The bones or the foundation if you will. It will be written on just about anything that has blank space and that a pen will write on. I’ve used bar napkins, parts of boxes, even a tissue once (That sucked), scratch paper, bills, envelopes and messed up printed documents. It doesn’t really matter as long as I can get what is in my head out. After enough of these have accumulated, I’ll start the first draft, which is also hand written. I’ll create an order to the story and write more detail, lead-ins and outs. Characters start to form, and the backdrop develops. Conflicts arise and relationships form. I do a lot of daydreaming at this stage. It’s easy and fun and there is no pressure, the story shapes itself. I fall in love with my new characters.
At the point where I feel the story has grown and shaped into something that would be coherent to more then myself, I start the second draft, this I type. Mind you, it has a ton of gaps, and that’s okay, I let the holes simmer in my mind for as long as they need. I type and then print out on different colored paper. I like a lot of color when I’m writing. Early drafts are brightly colored in whatever hue moves me at the time. I print it out double spaced and assemble the parts. They are often shifted around, there are no chapters yet, those come later.
As for the color, certain stories seem to call for certain colors. My current WIP, RynRaven early on leaned heavily on golds, pinks and blues. 2nd and 3rd drafts start to settle down in color, usually to a gray or a cream, this is when the story really comes together. There are the beginnings of chapters and I’ll actually start something similar to an outline to keep the different subplots running smoothly – making notes of what needs to be added where. It’s at this stage I become over confident and think my story is just about finished. HAHA.
Now I have a nice tan colored paper picked out for the nearly finished draft. This is when I start to have others read it. They can see the lags and the holes I cannot. Finally, I do my nearly final draft on white paper so that I can conduct my final revision – grammar, spelling and removing as much passive voice as I can. Finishing details like business names and some more smoothing and cutting of excess story that only drags, I can usually spot that nearer to the end. Usually.
One of my quirks is, I save everything. Every scene or page that gets re-written is folded in half and stored away. I’ve never thrown out anything I’ve written. Sound nuts? Maybe. I hate to see a depiction on television or in movies where the writer hates what she/he has written and crumbles it up angrily and throws it away. I have never crumbled up anything and just watching that makes me cringe (because if it that stinky, there is still the back of that perfectly good piece of paper I can write on, ;P)
I love writing, especially the physical act of long hand. I like typing well enough. I couldn’t ask someone else to do it because I’m always making changes as I type, so it’s really a love/hate relationship. Some days I can’t type enough. Other days, I wish it would just type right from my brain. (Tommyknockers, anyone?) I tried Dragon Speech, but once again, I change things as I go, and it just didn’t flow well (Not to mention, until it learns your speech patterns, you get some hysterical results, like, was I drinking when I wrote this??) And there is still that disconnect. I need the ‘act’ of writing to get the creative juices flowing.
And that is my writing process – the physical aspect of it.