A Writer's Process: Kate A. Hardy

I used to have a boyfriend whose creative processes came to life at about two in the morning.

He could work all night, cocooned in his dimly lit room, working on scripts and emerge briefly at around six in the morning when I was feeling at my most artistically productive . . . needless to say, the relationship didn’t last.

    And so it has continued. Six-thirty in the morning, in bed, with tea, that’s my writing time. The day hasn’t really started, lists of stuff to be done, safely downstairs. Dreams still cling and the previous days visual and audial impressions have been stocked ready for use – consciously or subconsciously. On the rare occasions that I don’t work at that time I feel slightly distracted all day, a niggling cloud hovering over my personal horizon.

    So, the writing process itself . . . I want to make structure but often (mostly) that seems to be an elusive thing, less so for short stories – an idea presents itself and refuses to go away until written down at least in a skeletal form. As they are short (5,000 or so words) it’s easier to craft a structure, a beginning, middle and end.

  Novels, for me, are more of a vast plane stretching out with a million possibilities

However much I try to plan, they take on a form of their own – usually fabricated by the characters themselves who seem to decide themselves what is about to happen next.

    This spontaneous form of working is exciting and I never find myself staring at a blank page wondering where to go next, however it does mean a lot of work later, rewriting, figuring out plot continuity elements and reining in the more ‘tangenty’ aspects of my writing.

    After my early morning a start, real life starts to encroach.

I pack up the ideas for a while and deal with the everyday. At some point I will walk dogs. For my writing process it’s vital to walk and think, look at trees, clouds, buildings, peoples’ gardens, etc. Most ideas seem to spring from my body being engaged in movement – swimming, particularly.

    Throughout the day, when possible, I will edit and re-write, write blogs and generally carry out stuff associated with writing, but the actual, real writing is an early morning activity; anything I ever write late at night will be stilted, probably incomprehensible and will need to be deleted at six-thirty the following morning . . .    

Writing Effortlessly

There are two things in my life, particularly, that have always invigorated me, and that I’ve instinctually known how to do without strain. Writing is not one of them (unfortunately).

However, through them, I’ve understood how to write with maximum ease, and enjoyment. 

This morning I did one of them. I went jogging. Surprised by the sudden chill of autumn, and lit by autumn’s soft light, I made it up to the ruined Cathar castle, and looked out over the Pyrenean mountains. Layered one in front of the other, the furthest silhouettes were still tipped by snow, recording last winter. The jagged sides of the nearest were carpeted with trees, their leaves just on the turn towards the completion of the seasons.  

On the winding track down, I met an older woman, in shades and slippers (really). She was struggling to keep up with her Cocker Spaniel.  She caught her breath and exhaled her question. ‘Did you go right up to the top?’ I nodded. Looking exhausted at the very thought, she replied, ‘my husband says I should do that. But it’s such an effort, isn’t it?’ I assumed the most sympathetic face that I could muster whilst jogging on the spot, and with a bon journee, we both went on our way.

But the thing is, it isn’t an effort. Not at all.

Firstly I don’t consider myself a ‘jogger’. It’s just that sometimes I put on trainers, and loosen my body up a bit by moving it on down the road.

I start very slowly. I go absolutely with the level of energy that is present for me that day. I ease into that, whether it’s a fast pace, or a slow pace. I stay with my bodily experience, and don’t aim to go any particular distance, or move at any particular speed. I watch the change of energy. Usually, the act of moving releases more, so I naturally speed up. But sometimes it doesn’t, so I don’t. Sometimes I feel I could push just a tad further into that store of energy. I do that, and watch what happens.

I see that thinking speeds me up. If I get lost in trains of thought, and lose connection with my body, I find that I am racing, disconnected from my physical experience of flow. Effort and resistance move in, and it’s no longer enjoyable. I am duller in body and mind, rather than more alive. 

If I jog in the right way, I arrive back on my doorstep invigorated. If I don’t, I’m exhausted.

The same is true of dancing. It’s about feeling the rhythm of the music, and allowing my body to respond. Not expecting.  Not hoping or fearing. Just waiting patiently for the responses, the messages, and answering.

I’ve taken these principles and applied them to my writing process:

1. I am someone who writes, rather than ‘a writer’ per se.

2. I never count words. Instead I put myself in my writing environment for a certain length of time, stay there whatever, and see what emerges.

3. I move my hand on the pen, or fingers on the keyboard, in response to the energy that arises. Sometimes I edge into it a little. Sometimes, I stop myself from moving away from a task, kindly. But my golden rule is never to force anything. (That risks plots, characters and phrasing being born as lifeless as forced flowers).

4. I have an outline of the section of story I’m going to write next beside me as a signpost, but otherwise I set up as few expectations for myself as possible. I do not berate myself for what my body/mind cannot do on any given day.  It’s my whole self that has a need to tell the story. I have to allow that to be what it wants to be. That’s the whole point of being someone who writes.

This is how I’ve learnt to write in a way that sustains through the months and years of long projects. This body-based learning has done more for me than any techniques offered to my rational mind. 

The Monthly Prompt

What small, physical activities do you do, without effort? E.g. are you an expert chef, lover, cyclist, make-up artist, singer or swimmer?

How could you apply what you know in other body-based arenas to your writing? 

A Writer's Process: Teresa Benison

My first thought when asked to write something for Wild Words was, what about a piece on The Writers’ Day?

Except, this writer’s day isn’t terribly interesting: desk; caffeine; fuss the cats; admire the collared doves roosting in my tree; lunch, then the same thing all over again….

Ok, so what about some musings on the process of writing?

A long time ago someone told me ‘you can’t call yourself a writer until someone else calls you a writer…’ It was seductive and, being young, it made a sort of sense. I see this now for what it truly is, a deeply damaging statement.

I do believe in the importance of connecting with those ‘someone elses’ (readers) but ‘being a writer’ is more than that. It is not what I do, it is what I am.

Story runs deep for me, it always has, and it is everywhere.

Once, walking through Cambridge city centre, I saw a sign on a lamppost advertising, ‘Public Executions’. In a flash my brain was off, transporting me to a dystopian future where executions habitually take place outside John Lewis with the BBC in attendance to capture reactions from the family and friends of victims.

It took me longer to write that paragraph than to envision it. There was a split second between seeing the sign and realising I’d misread it, that it actually said ‘public exhibition’, but that was more than enough time for my brain to go into overdrive. Moreover, for me the reality was far less interesting than my imagining.

So what I would like to do here is celebrate the fact that these days I embrace such moments. They are the flipside to the nag of self-doubt that I’m sure is common to many writers.

I have learnt to trust myself and my process. I never cease to relish the wildness of words and the power of story.

Story bubbles in my brain like a slow-cooking pot; add to that the special alchemy when story is transformed into words, words which take on a life of their own in the mind of the reader… what could be better, more exciting than that?

There you have it: a fragment of this particular writer’s process. Thank you for reading to the end, but now it really is time to get back to the cats and the caffeine, for I sense another story brewing…

Teresa Benison is a writer living and working in Cornwall; visit her at www.teresabenison.com

A Training Guide For Writing Wild

A student told me the other day that the thought of going outdoors to write terrified her.

In response to our conversation, I jotted down a few ideas which I hope will support you to just get out there. Take them with a pinch of salt  :-) 

-If the computer or television is more familiar to you than the world outside your front door, acclimatise slowly.

Start by venturing out into your garden (assuming you have one), then take on your local park. After that you should feel confident to go further…

-Get familiar with darkness.

Try lying in a dark room for twenty minutes, without falling asleep. You could also put on a blindfold, and feel your way around a room, or garden. Notice how the senses other than sight will come to your aid. See that your fears are bigger then the reality.

-Practice with texture under your feet and hands.

Exchange carpets and varnished floorboards for barefoot scurrying across your pebbled drive.  Swap flat white walls for touching brick and stone. Touch plants (carefully) that you usually consider too spiky.

-Consider going ‘off-line’.

Leaving the phone and Wi Fi behind is the new trend, have you heard? To really go into the unknown means to rely on your own resources, rather than those of your mother/partner/friend/therapist at the other end of the line. Face the reality that where you’re going there may not be a phone signal anyway. To prepare for this, turn your phone off for ten minutes, and see how it feels. Then progress to twenty minutes. Go up incrementally from there. When you can do three hours -the length of the writing of the first draft of your epic poem- you’re ready.

-Decide where to go.

You want to go into unknown territory. It will give you the sharpness of attention that’s conducive to vivid writing. But you don’t want to go anywhere that will frighten you too much, or where you place yourself in danger. A scared writer just freezes up, that is not creative.

-Make your destination information available on a need-to-know basis only. 

Threaten teenagers with loss of privileges if they contact or come looking for you in anything other than a REAL emergency (borrowing money/the car, trips to the supermarket for Nuttela etc… are not classed as real emergencies).

Finally. Remember. You deserve some time for you. Take it. Without apologies or excuses.

The Weekly Prompt

Put the six encouragements above into action :-)

The Hole In The Wall

When we write we set up a world in which the reader views our story through a series of frames.

Writing is an on-going process of choosing what places, people, objects, and information to withhold or reveal, and in what detail. We need to make these choices according to the effect we hope to achieve. Do we want to build tension, raise drama, or release laughter?

It’s not unlike a series of film shots. In one frame a man walks down a dark street alone. In the next the mugger is there, arm round his neck, tugging at the bag. Surprised, shocked? I hope so. The effect is created by bringing something from outside the frame, in, unexpectedly.

Thinking about frames reminded me that one of the principles of Japanese garden design, is called ‘shakkei’ which literally means ‘borrowed scenery’.  

Here, a frame of trees or fencing, or perhaps a hole made in a wall, is used to capture an element from outside the garden that is poignant, or emotive, and make it part of the composition.

When I think of this idea, I always think of the maze that is the South Devon lanes. The hedges on either side of the small roads are six feet high. I drive along, seeing nothing except the road, until, quite suddenly, there’s a gate. The view opens up and I’m both flying free and finding my feet simultaneously. Open fields stretching to the sea, and endless sky. Breath-taking.

In the spirit of shakkei, I went for a walk yesterday.  

Going up the hill, and round the corner I was immediately aware of what was hidden and then gradually revealed. The first frame was a square of green wire in a fence. Inside it, the far mountains. The wood of a child’s swing created a moving frame, the view ever-altering. There were also caravan windows, the scratched Perspex distorting the sunlight and abstracting the view.  And then finally, and most wonderfully, in an upstanding slab of concrete, a small round hole revealed the pink glow of the sky, so ethereal in contrast with the hard material that enabled it.

I see now there’s a reason that galleries frame paintings. Things just look better through a frame.

The Weekly Prompt

This week, borrow some scenery, and create your own shakkei. Go for a walk outside and look for natural frames. Alternatively, construct a simple frame and take it outside with you.

When you notice a natural frame, or actively frame something- what does it bring to your experience of the environment? What effect does it have on the reader to describe that view in words? Choose different frames, and notice how your choices about what you emphasise, and what you leave out, change the story you tell.

First published June 7th 2013

Inspired By Nature: Sue Johnson

My work and the natural world are closely linked. I am fortunate to have lexical-gustatory synaesthesia where I interpret some words and names as a specific taste.

For instance, ‘world’ tastes of pink blancmange, ‘feather’ tastes of whipped cream and ‘thunder’ tastes of thick porridge. These sensations never change and can’t be switched off!

Since 1st January 2013, I’ve written a poem a day every day. I discovered that, even on days when time was a problem, I could always find a few minutes to scribble the draft of a poem in my notebook – usually sitting in a car park and watching the clouds or focusing on a bird or a tree. Some of these poems have gone on to be published in small press magazines – often with minimal alteration. Others have been developed into longer poems or they’ve formed the nucleus of a short story or a scene from a novel.

A friend of mine keeps a nature journal which includes photographs, pressed flowers, sketches, feathers, leaves and short poems. It occurs to me that this would be a brilliant idea for developing a series of story boards for a short story collection.

Obviously, not all my poems ‘work.’ This doesn’t matter. I have great fun recycling them.

If you fancy trying this, it involves scissors and glue and you can create more than one version. Print off a copy of a poem that hasn’t worked. Cut it up. Add six new words, a colour and a sound. Reposition the words. Play around with them until you’ve got something you’re happy with then glue them in place.

At the end of his life, the artist Picasso said he regretted not playing more. I’m determined not to let this happen to me.

If I do get stuck with a writing project I find that a walk amongst trees or by water helps me to sort the problem.  I’m also lucky to have a summerhouse in the garden where I hear blackbirds on the roof and the scent of lavender and honeysuckle drifts in through the open door.

Nature is playful. Look at the way the clouds move. Look at the common names for wild flowers – what could you do with ‘enchanter’s nightshade’, ‘fox and cubs’ and lady’s smocks?

Listen to the sound of the wind and the different birdsongs.

For a long time now, I’ve looked on the words I create as being like a seed bank. They will yield a harvest when the time is right.  

www.writers-toolkit.co.uk

Movement and Rhythm

In ‘The Poetic Principle’, Edgar Allen Poe says,

I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of beauty.

Poets out there will probably feel comfortable with that definition. Prose writers perhaps less so. But the line between poetry and prose is a blurred one, and those of us who write prose would also do well to embrace it.

Virginia Woolf describes how,

A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it ... 

Our job then is to transfer that life, movement, and rhythm into words on a page, that others may know it.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, in his journal, presents us with a fine example of how it reads when you do it well. This is his description of the movement and rhythm of a wave.

Aug. 13 — Heavy seas: we walked along the sea wall to the Kennaway Tunnel to watch them. The wave breaks in this order — the crest of the barrel 'doubling' (that, a boatman said, is the word in use) is broken into a bush of foam, which, if you search it, is a lace and tangle of jumping sprays; then breaking down these grow to a sort of shaggy quilt tumbling up the beach; thirdly this unfolds into a sheet of clear foam and running forward it leaves and laps the wave reaches its greatest height upon the shore and at the same time its greatest clearness and simplicity; after that, raking on the shingle and so on, it is forked and torn and, as it commonly has a pitch or lurch to one side besides its backdraught, these rents widen; they spread and mix and the water clears and escapes to the sea transparent and keeping in the end nothing of its white except in long dribble-bubble strings which trace its set and flow.

Wild words indeed.

Wild words have a broad range of expression, and vocabulary. The verbs are strong, and varied. They mostly stand alone.

When describing a person’s passage down a street, that person doesn’t just run, they canter, charge, and gallop. When describing their conversation, they don’t just talk, they squeak, they howl, and they rant. Strong verbs rarely need an adjective. Adjectives are used with great prudence.

As living, breathing creatures, Wild words are flexible and malleable. The wild storyteller plays with rhythm for strongest effect. A rhythm can be said to be a ‘regular recurrence or pattern in time’.

Wild words have rhythms, as varied as the gaits of the numerous wild creatures.

Rhythm can be achieved in many ways: including by choice of sentence length, by use of white space, by assonance, resonance and rhyme.

The basis of their rhythm is iambic, the di-DUM di-DUM di-DUM that spoken English has always moved to. The wild storyteller knows that when these rules of internal rhythm are broken without good reason, the result can be clotted prose, writing that does not flow.

Wild words play skilfully with listener and reader expectations, noting the effect that a change of rhythm has on those receiving the story. 

The Monthly Writing Prompt

Write about water: the sea, a lake, river, pond, or rain storm. Describe it, in poetry or prose, with precision. Look closely, and be curious. Can you reflect and heighten all its varying moods  through the use of rhythm in your words? 
 

A Day In The Life Of A Writer: Elizabeth Ducie

When people ask me if I’m retired, I am indignant. True, I will never see 60 again, unless I take my mother-in-law’s example and start counting the years backwards.

True, I no longer have a day job that pays the bills. True, I have thrown out most of my business suits and spend my days in jeans or shorts. But I still work, I protest: I am a full-time writer!

But what does that mean? Do I work a 9-5 shift, five days a week? Do I have someone managing my time and giving me instructions? Let’s think about that.

Even without a regular alarm clock, I get up very early; usually before six o’clock. If it’s a gym day, I head to the nearest town, punish my body for a while and then return for breakfast. Otherwise I hit the laptop as soon as I am up. But either way, I am working well before many employed people.

And in the mornings, I write. Whether it’s a chapter or two of the next novel, a short story for a competition, an article or blog post, I try to get some new words down on (virtual) paper every day.

It’s the quantity of words that I use as my main measure of productivity. (In my earlier life, I was a production manager and it’s hard to drop the terminology.)

As a self-published (by choice) author, I am also responsible for marketing and sales, so there’s lots of administration and promotion to be fitted into the day. That’s my afternoon task; less creative but equally satisfying.

I knock off about tea-time in order to catch up with the early evening quizzes (my guilty secret) but will always have the laptop set up on the table in the lounge. I often return to it during the evening, although it will mainly be for lighter work, like catching up on social media (and yes, that’s work too).

With a life-style like this, weekends mean very little and so this would tend to be my timetable, whatever day the calendar is showing.

So it’s fair to say I work more than a 9-5 shift, seven days a week. But I am my own boss and I manage my own time. If I want to take a couple of hours off for coffee with a friend, or go to the hairdressers mid-week, I do.

No, I’m not retired; I am a full-time writer; and I have the best job in the world.

www.elizabethducie.co.uk