On Writing: Establish, Study, Train, Walk

The previous entry covered organizational techniques for writing. This one gets a little bit into the psyche of it. I’ll write my own thoughts on this subject alongside some summarized notes from another article. Refer to this Writer’s Digest page for the referenced article.

1. “Establish a calm, centered mind.”

Set up a workspace. Remove distractions. Define boundaries. Create focused expectations. Establish a routine. Be your own leader. Don’t panic! (Douglas Adams had it right. Kelby, the writer of the article referenced above, is on the right track.)

Set aside specific hours to write, close the door, listen (or don’t listen) to music. Your work will most likely require a lot of editing. If stuck, then take a break, sleep on it, and return to it the next day. Complete the entire draft before submitting excerpts. To write a best-seller, direct it to the global audience. It’ll work if the readers see themselves in the story. Keep it genuine by writing from a part of yourself.

Maintain your health by exercising, eating right, getting sleep, and keeping a balance between work and play. Set your own pace. Use your own process. Write your own works.

2. “Study your breed.”

Think about what the readers of your genre will demand or expect from your story. Define your expectations. Stick with them. The process will evolve and become natural. Writing about any real people, places, or things? Study them. Know them. Associate the known – the facts – with the unknown, your creative extensions.

Get into a person’s head.

Unravel a historical twist about a place.

Dissect that thing and discover an intriguing new component.

It will help to create an outline for the entire story before writing a single word. Determine the path that each idea will take prior to putting it into chapters. Stay on track with the expectations. It’s supply and demand.

Determine how you will tell your story.

A couple highly successful methods:

• The simple approach of pivoting off of a central theme, as with, “There’s no place like home,” from L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
• The complex approach toward different perceptions of good and evil from Gregory Maguire’s Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.

3. “Train your focus.”

Be intense. Make everything in the story work. Think of the inclusion and exclusion of information – from basics to details – like that of a TV news story. The images. The sounds. What you see at first. What you discover later. What is relevant. What is irrelevant and unnecessary. Every single idea – from basics to details – must intertwine such that they bind to create a masterpiece.

If you create and compile a plethora of ideas for your story then be sure, when it comes to writing, to only include the necessary bits. Don’t cram it all in. If you create an entire universe (as I have with my fiction writing hobby, though it is an ever-evolving entity) and you created a plot point, character, place, or anything that really stood out before but it is no longer relevant to the story, then put it aside and save it for another day. It might end up morphing into your story or it might be better off as a part of a completely different story.

Don’t ever throw away your ideas. Keep an idea box.

4. “Walk your inner dog.”

“I’m going to give you a little advice. There’s a force in the universe that makes things happen. And all you have to do is get in touch with it, stop thinking, let things happen, and be the ball.” – Caddyshack.

Determine the genre:

Read an article about an extravagant adventure that someone experienced. Imagine being in that situation. Feel what they felt. Understand them. Associate your impression of that article with a story you read that had a similar impact on you. If it is an adventure then take that model, or breed, and run with it.

Deal with the facts & expectations:

Commit to writing content that grasps the readers’ attention, convinces them of your characters’ needs for facing obstacles, and teases your readers just enough to strike a Pavlovian response of wanting more. Opening the story up to the vastness of your imagination, yet grounding key elements with the facts and genre expectations, will contribute toward writing an entrancing story.

Above all else, be true to yourself. Be true to your vision of the world.

Writing the book is an art. It includes risks, new realities, and colorful adventures. The finished book is business. Sales. And more sales. Keep the two separate. Write it first. Deal with how many you sell later.

Tame your ideas or you’ll never finish your work. Be persistent. Never give up.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” – T.H. Palmer.

Walk your inner dog. It could go anywhere. With writing, anything is possible.

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