A Writer's Process: Bridget Holding

Written on 20th March 2016

Today has been a perfect writing day. In that I have arrived at the evening with a real sense of satisfaction. The poem may not be finished, but it knows where it’s going.

Writing on a Sunday is sometimes more productive than during the week. Probably because all those small administrative things that usually niggle at me, seem to have no sway at the weekend. It’s the day of rest after all. Not that writing is exactly rest. It can be hard work. But it nourishes me.

This morning I awoke without an alarm at around seven, and had the start to the day that is most conducive to my writing process. I lay in bed a while, seeing what was present for me in terms of feelings and body sensations. 

Today is the spring equinox, and I knew I wanted to write something on that subject. However, I know from experience that if I don’t let what’s already there be heard, then that will block other expression.

Sometimes I just brainstorm on to a piece of paper with words about ‘what’s in the way of my writing today’.  However, today, there was one strong theme.  Sadness. So I made a cup of tea, propped myself up with pillows, and wrote down the words that wanted to come from that place of sadness. I was blessed with a strong image, so that helped me to find a path of self-expression from the feelings.

Once I was up, showered and breakfasted, I looked at information on some of the themes around the equinox, on the internet. I always feel a little like this is not what a poet is meant to do, but I’m enjoying bringing some astronomy and physics into my poems on ‘the turning year’. I like that specificity. It’s grounding my work.

What really sets me on fire as a poet is building a path from the microcosm of the movements of my own inner experience (body sensation and feeling particularly) to the macrocosm of the movements of nature, or the universe, or other abstract themes.

Aristotle said (I’m paraphrasing) that ‘the greatest of thing of all, is to be a master of metaphor’ I aim at that. Why not aim high! So, I found in the information and videos of the earth moving round the sun, some movement words that allowed me to feel that rhythm in my own body.

Then I stashed some paper and a pen, and my phone, into my coat pocket, and went for a walk. I’m lucky enough to live in the foothills of the Pyrenees. I walked two hours up a mountain, which really feels like going into the wilds.  I tried to feel into my animal self. Not to think, but to stay with the embodied experience of walking, alert to my environment, taking in sensory impressions. As words came to me, I jotted them down. I returned with two pages of hand written notes on various facets of my subject.

I ate lunch and took a siesta. Sleep for me, is like a wave clearing the beach. When I awoke I was in my body, and ready to go back to the poem.

I’ve been happy with today’s poem from the beginning. It found a form and shape immediately. I knew the pace, where to put the reader’s attention, the outline of it, from the outset. So today has been about filling that outline in.

This afternoon’s work (I meant to work two hours this afternoon, but worked four) has been about two things.

First, I’ve been doing small physical movements to feel deeper into the moments of movement in the planet I describe in the poem. Sometimes I might, for example, repeat a small tilt of my hips, which mirrors the tilt the earth makes in my poem at the equinox, perhaps fifty times. The words rise up from that embodied experience. If I am patient enough to wait and be with it.

The second thing I did this evening, when I had a good-enough first draft, was to consciously bring all the senses into the poem- I want the reader to smell, touch, taste, hear, and see the colours. That took some time. And some thinking myself back to the experience of walking this morning.

And then there were some internet facts to check too. Quite a few as the poem seems to be expanded to a story about three countries (not to mention the planet as a whole!)

Although I was hoping to write this poem in a day, it’s not finished. As quite often happens, it’s turning into a longer poem than I had intended, and is taking longer than I hoped.

It’s hard work too. Somehow I forget that between writing each poem.  Stringing words together on a mountain top, is really just the beginning of the day.

I realised at the end of this afternoon, that I need to bring the spring mountain flowers more alive to the reader. And the sensory impressions aren’t quite there. To do that I might have to walk back up the mountain again sometime this week, and bring some back.

I’ve going to put it online anyway. We are writers sharing the process, after all.

I’ll sleep soundly tonight.  In touch with the wild.

You can read my poem 'Spring Equinox-March 2016' also on this blog.

A Writer's Process: Sophie van Llewyn

I love to write on the huge couch in my living room, with my computer in my lap, reclining my back on the multitude of soft pillows .

However, that isn’t really an option any more since I became pregnant , so minor adjustments have had to be made.

When do I write? Being a doctor, my schedule is quite chaotic. During vacations, I write 4-6 hours per day, but when I have to work, I am only able to write on week-end for a few hours.

I find writing a very rewarding experience and sometimes I manage to enter that state when I am ‘on a row’ and the ideas keep flowing. I often try no to be over-conscious about my writing and let my unconscious do the job, too, with very surprising results. Not once had I looked at the computer in front of me after committing something to paper and wondered ‘Where did that come from?’

The greatest surprise was the ending of my novel.

First of all, my leading character ended up in a totally different place than what I had expected as I began to write the book, and second , she did something which I didn’t entirely approve of.

I had invested certain qualities and features in her, and at some point in the story, she began doing whatever she wanted and not what suited me. However, this only made me happier with the final result. My character was so strong and came to be so alive in my mind, that she actually did things her way, in the end.

I sometimes find it difficult to choose the perfect words in order to convey an idea I have in my mind.

At times, I feel that the words I have written don’t accurately express the idea I had formulated in my head. I encounter this difficulty most often when I am confronted with descriptions, landscapes, interiors, dress or countenance. I often find that the words on the computer screen don’t do justice to the Idea as I saw it with my mind’s eyes, and I find that incredibly frustrating.

I should probably mention at this point that English is a foreign language to me,

but if you would ask me now if I find it hard to write in English, I would say no. I believe that writing in my maternal language would be just as hard/easy (it is all a matter of perspective, isn’t it?)  Of course, it was difficult in the beginning, I really had trouble with the phrasing, but approx. 200,000 words later, I can’t say that I find it straining anymore. I have read somewhere , years ago , that people express themselves with far more clarity in a foreign language, because they have to search more consciously for their words. I can tell you now, from my own experience, that the statement is true.

sophievanllewyn.wordpress.com

A Writer's Process: Robyn Curtis

My poem Climbing Kimber has been through various incarnations, one a bit too flabby, one too pretty, too gritty ... yet there it has stayed, the sky, the moor, the grey stone and rich heather and peat.

Kinder Plateau is my second home - after the downs of the Isle of Wight - and there it was the sea that fed the steel clouds and wind. But now living further north, limestone gives way to granite and some days only the tops and edges above the Edale valley will do.

I often start poems with an image from nature, usually on a walk which becomes a slow process if it's one of those days when I am stopping to scribble in my notebook every ten steps! I carry a small notebook that slips into a pocket and a soft pencil. I have become addicted to 3B pencils and their feel on the paper so nothing else feels right, though in extremis anything that makes a mark will do.

Images sometimes spark a personal memory - more often provoke a feeling which can take shape in the image. Although the sense in my poems is often of sadness, it is rarely exclusively sad because making an image, especially from nature, both gives the sadness expression and surprises us with a deeper joy, from both being in nature and in the act of creating itself.

I didn't write for many years;  like many of us, not listening to myself in the throes of family and career.

But I careered out of all that a number of years ago and have been coming to terms with health limitations alongside a deep need for self-realisation - said so often but it's so true, that if you are not doing what you feel you are meant to do, or being who you are meant to be, how can you find contentment?

So here I am in a new way of life: kids left home, obliging husband who gives me all the space I need and carries my lunch and camera up the hills; I have the luxury of a room to myself at the moment but that could change soon with enforced downsizing. I feel I could do without almost anything except a big table covered with art stuff that I just play with and my own room, however tiny, for just being alone in.

I don't actually write much in this room. I type things, amend things, play around, lie on the couch, talk to the cats - and I find all that 'nothing' time is vital for any creative process to grind into action somewhere out of awareness.

Then the writing, first draft, amendments, better wording, next level of ideas - all tend to pop into my head on the train, in a cafe, in the bath - I am looking for a waterproof writing set up for making notes in the shower!

So this poem comes after some considerable heartache dealing with the fallout from loss and trauma,

and earlier drafts featured heavily the gravestone/gritstone and running dark streams ... but as it evolved the moorland birds and sky and the great freedom and hope they bring would not be left out and I was so happy to find that I did actually feel I could live in both places -the darkness we must all navigate at times as well as the airy and magical spaces of the world and when you are up high you can really be with the birds there.

Thanks to Wild Words for giving me the opportunity to share with like minded writers - I am quite a beginner tip-toeing into the world. Good luck to everyone. 

A Writer's Process: Lucy Whetman

 

‘English Girl’ is part of a longer project about time I spent living in Greece.

When I read Bridget’s prompt for the competition I thought it summed up what this section is about. I reworked the piece in the light of the entry guidance about bringing in ‘the wild’ and that helped to strengthen it.

I like to write about real-life experiences because I want to understand why certain times and events hold such significance for me. Trying to create a coherent account of what happened, and why, forces me to make sense of it in order to communicate it in words on the page. With this story in particular I wanted to show the excitement of arriving in a new country and the way that an unfamiliar culture taught me to see myself and my life differently. From the moment I landed I began to change.

What gets in the way when I write is my own critical side.

My job is as a sub-editor means that this gets plenty of use, so it is challenging but fun to use a different part of my brain, to let go of any pressure to produce something that is ‘right’ first time, and be surprised by what does come out. When I look back at old drafts of this piece and notice how much it has changed, I may think that the latest version is best but I know that it would not exist without the previous ones.

If I get stuck when I am writing, I make myself stop and go for a walk or a bath. I love what pops into my head when I am no longer thinking about it.

What helps is useful feedback and any encouragement, especially from other writers. I like reading the work of other developing writers, particularly memoirists. Hearing people’s own individual stories written in their own words is fascinating.

I do not know what will happen next with this project.

The process itself motivates me. I want to find out what this memoir will become, and I enjoy the feeling that I am learning and improving as a writer.

At the moment I am altering the structure and the memoir is expanding. I have discovered that the main theme is not what I originally thought it was, which is great because the new theme is much better.

A Writer's Process: Ann Palmer

Decades ago, I initiated the teaching of Creative Writing at several Colleges of Adult Education. My two qualifications: a primary teaching certificate and publication as a children's short story and article writer.

Back then, no guidelines existed for Creative Writing teachers.  Fortunately I like experimenting with creativity.

My reasoning was that the first word of the course was creative and all my students could write anyway. I ordered thirty books on Creative Writing from the States and quickly became fascinated by right brain led methods.

One student, a rocket-scientist, (really!) doodled all over his file while I talked. Eventually I asked Mark why he doodled. Mark told me it kept him switched on in boring lectures! That is, it kept his whole brain engaged; the doodling ensuring his right brain was activated.

A few years after this, I wrote my book on Creative Writing – 'Writing and Imagery: How to deepen creativity and improve your writing'. 

I had to change my pen-name to A.J. Palmer, the male look-alike, as the publisher believes male authors carry more academic credibility than women!

Today I am an eco-lyricist. I put eco-lyrics to well-known and much loved songs, carols and hymns. As my EcoCarols project had attracted global educational interest, I decided the next stage was to work up a musical script. It was to consist video-clips to expand on the lyrics of fifteen EcoCarols.  I knew how to do this.

On a playwriting course, we were asked to produce fifty action images to kickstart the creative process. So the method was familiar. Yet, for a whole year I put off doing it. The fact I had written a book on the power of imagery as a fantastic aid in the writing process (backed up by the experience of a rocket scientist who went on to earn a six figure sum for his fantasy trilogy) didn't seem to make any difference. Unsurprisingly, the longer I put it off, the bigger the block became. I willingly tackled other writing projects, rather than face that big block!

So, my advice is a threesome. Stay open-minded. Draw or otherwise engage your right brain. If a block feels big, remember the adage: the bigger the block, the greater the breakthrough.

It's a lesson I am relearning right now!

                                                                                                         http://www.gaiadancebooks.com/

A Writer's Process: Karen Lethlean

Karen was a runner-up in the Wild Words Writing Competition which closed in December 2015.

 

The process of creating the story Black, Red and Yellow began with a snippet I encountered while reading the work of a Sri Lankan writer, Roshi Fernando (author of Homesick).

Like trinkets a bower bird might collect the sense of remembering a trip back to a homeland stuck in my brain. But I had to find a way to make this piece mine. So after a recent trip to the Northern Territory the mesh of inland Australia was laid across those initial thoughts.

I was continually worried about the thought that my ideas belonged to Roshi Fernando.

So I needed to understand that while that trinket I first saw was written by someone else, I was not copying her, but instead using something glimpsed in a new and original manner.

A good analogy here would be that of a seamstress; she sees a design somewhere, goes out and buys unique fabric, puts the piece together and comes up with her own creation.

Being a writer means reading widely and I cannot help but be intrigued by things others have written. I am constantly making notes, putting little snippets away, and looking back later to find I cannot recall where they came from but that a tiny few words can later become an entire new story.

Working in a multi-cultural school, being aware and very interested in indigenous cultures did help the writing of Black, Red and Yellow.  I have long harboured the desire to find some Noongar blood somewhere in my family tree, so my curiosity is endless.

I also wanted to try and deal with the way children are often stereotyped, no matter what their cultural or racial group.

So giving Jenny a voice about the way she sees others and how she feels treated seemed to work. Even though with the ending and my title I cannot help but wonder if I have in fact stereotyped Jenny into becoming an artist in her adult life. Such are the concerns of a writer!

Having a very supportive husband, who settles my worries, who tirelessly does the housework and allows me time to hit the keyboard (even though I have installed a writing rule that when the lap-top needs re-charging I finish for the day) is a wonderful help to being about to work creatively. 

A Writer's Process: Jenny Alexander

My older sister killed herself when I was 23 and I always knew I’d want to write something for young people about suicide.

My first thought was that it should be a Young Adult self-help book, as I’d already written 8 self-help books for children, but my agent couldn’t get a publisher on board with it. She suggested I might write it as a novel instead.

I finished the first version of my novel, Drift, more than 10 years ago, and several publishers expressed interest in it, but they all eventually decided that the story was ‘too quiet for the market.’ They said it needed a ‘strong hook,’ that is to say, to be out-of-the-ordinary in some striking way.

But my reason for writing it in the way I had was because I wanted to help other survivors of sibling suicide to feel less alone in that already extraordinary grief. The whole point of my book was that it should feel real; it should feel like any young person’s life, suddenly disrupted by something that could happen to anyone.

I knew I had written a good book and I wasn’t willing to compromise it by sexing it up, so I shelved it and tried to forget about it, but it wouldn’t go away.

So when I got a new agent a few years later, I sent it to her. She liked it, but told me she found the most dramatic passages weirdly unmoving.

I realised then that I’d been unwilling to feel the kind of emotions I’d felt when my own sister killed herself; by creating a protagonist who was emotionally numb, I’d hoped to be able to tell her story without feeling the raw pain of her situation.

I rewrote the whole novel, this time fully inhabiting the main character, and it was the hardest rewrite I’d ever done, but the experience broadened my reach as a writer. Where previously I had invariably used humour in stories about difficult subjects such as bullying, now I found I could lay down that armour if I wanted to. It felt brave.

My agent sent the revised version out to publishers. They still found it ‘too quiet’ so I brought Drift out myself on September 10th 2015, to mark World Suicide Prevention Day. I later realised that my choice of publication date was almost exactly 40 years to the day after my sister’s death.

Drift has received wonderful reviews so far and has just been included in the list of books recommended by Cruse, the UK’s largest charity for the support of bereaved children, young people and adults. When I saw that on their website, I felt I had done what I set out to do.

http://jennyalexander.co.uk/young-adult

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/191030008X?keywords=jenny%20alexander&qid=1453380135&ref_=sr_1_6&sr=8-6 

A Writer's Process: Barbara O Donnell

Writing started out as a way of processing my teenage world. 

I’ve been keeping a journal off and on since, and find it useful.

These days, writing is imperative. I work full time, running two operating theatres, at a major London teaching hospital. Since I no longer work unsocial hours, I’m able to schedule writing time somewhat more, though I don’t necessarily write every day.

I used to think that you had to be struck with a flash of inspiration in order to write anything worthwhile.

Now, I’ve learned that the flash is only about the initial idea and it doesn’t always come.

When it does, I get it onto paper or the notepad app on my mobile.  At first it appears like a lot of scraps, but they can often become something cohesive if you can find the patience to sit with them, by leaving them aside for a while. I have found missing verses to a poem this way.

Initially, I use paper to brainstorm ideas, especially for poetry. Lots of notes in margins, redrafting using numbered drafts. Words and punctuation appear and sometimes sound different on a piece of paper in your hand versus read off the computer screen.  The space around the words can be as important as the words themselves, especially in poetry.  A computer screen can dull the edges.

In 2015, I made the exciting jump from poetry and journal to non-fiction, interviews, flash fiction, opinion pieces and editing. The next task is learning to distinguish what form would best fit a piece that I’m brewing. 

Working as an editor on the alternative Irish Arts website, The Bogman’s Cannon, has been invaluable both for creative community and learning.  

Another helpful strategy, has been finding a friendly mentor, someone you can bounce ideas around with and who may agree to look at your work, paid of course.  A good editor will see your internal narrative and help guide both individual pieces and work as a whole, in the right direction.

When looking for inspiration, I try not to restrict myself to any one medium. The Artist’s Date is another layered idea that can bring many rewards.  See a textile exhibition or a play. If you are a traditional form writer, see some slam poetry.  Do the opposite of what you might normally do.  I don’t have any formal tertiary education in writing, but this is no barrier. 

Do workshops, make friends, carve out time where you can to be creative and find your voice.