smallhobbit (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smallhobbit) wrote2013-09-05 07:11 pm
smallhobbit) wrote2013-09-05 07:11 pm
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Thirty Days Meme: Day 12 - How Do I Write?
Today I had a post-audit meeting with the accountant, a management meeting and a finance meeting to discuss what we are going to do with the issues raised by the first meeting. Consequently my brain is fried and I have done no work.
Which meant that I looked back through the questions I was asked on Day 4 to find another topic to write about, and finally selected another one of Drayce's questions. Incidentally, if anyone else has something they would like me to ramble on, do please ask; I still have 60% of this meme to complete (did I mention I've been in finance meetings most of the day?)
Not that my writing process is very exciting: I start at the beginning, work my way to the end and then stop. I may go back and change wording, or, if I realise that there's a problem with the plot I'll make adjustments, but essentially my first words will be at the start of the story and I will write on through. If I'm stuck at any point I will pause until the wording comes, or I've sorted the next bit of the action in my head. I cannot skip forward and write a later section and then return to fill in the gap.
That's not to say that I don't have future sections in my head, but they will not be committed to word doc/paper. I can have the next scene clearly in my mind, but if I can't work out how to get my characters to that scene then they will not be moving.
I visualise everything, not necessarily a blow by blow account, but in the same way that I watch a television programme, I can see my protagonists moving around. Which means that if I write in a comment on someone's work that I can see something happening I mean exactly that - in my head I can see the events. I am a very visual learner. You can explain something to me verbally, but unless you give me the time to visualise it, you will be wasting your breathe.
I have a half hour drive to work every day, so I do a lot of plotting whilst on the journey. We have an exercise bike and I've found that's excellent for untangling knotty plot problems whilst cycling along - and there's no risk of falling off or getting rained on. Sometimes if I wake in the night I'll bash ideas around, but that's more for getting possibilities for what happens next, rather than specific plot points. And of course there are occasions when the characters have their own opinions - I still remember one of mine suddenly deciding he was hungry and sticking a baked potato in the microwave.
I am assuming that this was the sort of thing Drayce was expecting. Alternatively, I write directly onto word doc - I have RSA Stage 1 Typewriting and can touch type, an achievement which has proved so much more useful than I imagined when I went to evening classes at Hammersmith College. When I'm on a train (and I nearly always do write when I'm on a train - either that or fall asleep) I write in pencil in a notebook. The disadvantage is then having to type it up, when my handwriting has been rendered more illegible than usual by train bumps.
Which meant that I looked back through the questions I was asked on Day 4 to find another topic to write about, and finally selected another one of Drayce's questions. Incidentally, if anyone else has something they would like me to ramble on, do please ask; I still have 60% of this meme to complete (did I mention I've been in finance meetings most of the day?)
Not that my writing process is very exciting: I start at the beginning, work my way to the end and then stop. I may go back and change wording, or, if I realise that there's a problem with the plot I'll make adjustments, but essentially my first words will be at the start of the story and I will write on through. If I'm stuck at any point I will pause until the wording comes, or I've sorted the next bit of the action in my head. I cannot skip forward and write a later section and then return to fill in the gap.
That's not to say that I don't have future sections in my head, but they will not be committed to word doc/paper. I can have the next scene clearly in my mind, but if I can't work out how to get my characters to that scene then they will not be moving.
I visualise everything, not necessarily a blow by blow account, but in the same way that I watch a television programme, I can see my protagonists moving around. Which means that if I write in a comment on someone's work that I can see something happening I mean exactly that - in my head I can see the events. I am a very visual learner. You can explain something to me verbally, but unless you give me the time to visualise it, you will be wasting your breathe.
I have a half hour drive to work every day, so I do a lot of plotting whilst on the journey. We have an exercise bike and I've found that's excellent for untangling knotty plot problems whilst cycling along - and there's no risk of falling off or getting rained on. Sometimes if I wake in the night I'll bash ideas around, but that's more for getting possibilities for what happens next, rather than specific plot points. And of course there are occasions when the characters have their own opinions - I still remember one of mine suddenly deciding he was hungry and sticking a baked potato in the microwave.
I am assuming that this was the sort of thing Drayce was expecting. Alternatively, I write directly onto word doc - I have RSA Stage 1 Typewriting and can touch type, an achievement which has proved so much more useful than I imagined when I went to evening classes at Hammersmith College. When I'm on a train (and I nearly always do write when I'm on a train - either that or fall asleep) I write in pencil in a notebook. The disadvantage is then having to type it up, when my handwriting has been rendered more illegible than usual by train bumps.