In the last few weeks I've had three people ask me about how to get "creative" words down onto the page, like they couldn't find the start line. Two were women, 45-ish, and one bloke about 75. The women were together and had read a couple of my novels, and one wanted to dabble in short stories, and the other aspired to a novel or two, while the old fella just wanted to get his life captured in an "interesting way", referring to how I'd done some of my stuff on "The Workshop", as he'd rightly picked that I often do memoir but make it look like fiction, standing behind an invented character. Way to go!
I guess I'm fairly single-minded when it comes to handing out this kind of advice. I love to help people find in themselves what I've found, that joy of creating life right there on the page, but I can only give them my own approach. I suggested they check out the re-jigged stuff off here to the right, but they wanted to talk about it, about - how? But mostly where? How do I start and where do I start?
So I - as always - pointed them at short stories. But the thing I always can't get my head around, is how can they NOT be writing. I mean, once my switch was turned on, I just couldn't stop. Back before then I felt as though I simply had nothing to say. But afterwards, there were stories at every hand and I felt - still do - the need, the compulsion, to write them down. So, now I think I expect every wannabe writer to be the same and therefore shouldn't need to ask.
But they ask what I do. So I walked through the life of my current short story.
You get an idea, "inspiration" I guess. Something grabs you. For me this time it was reading that book "Blokes & Sheds" (below somewhere). But it's often something I hear or see or remember. So I mull it around for a couple of days, "write" stuff in my head, take a pad and pen, scribble it out, type it up, print it off (using Courier New font with double line spacing for editing), put it in a project folder, get back to it as often as I can, edit, scribble more ideas. Things I hadn't thought of spring off the page. It takes on a life of its own, comes alive. From then on I do endless "head writing" as the thing evolves, get impatient to get them onto the page, but when I can't I scribble them down on a scrap of paper, stuff them in the folder till I can get to them. And so it grows.
Only this way can I "see" the possibilities, see what it's REALLY about. Because you are writing down LIFE. The choice and arrangement of the words is only about the entertainment factor, making it enjoyable and stimulating for some stranger to read. But it's in that choosing that you need to let go of your controls and your shackles and concerns, and take CHANCES. One of the best things to read to understand taking chances is Dylan Thomas's "Under Milkwood". Geez I love that piece. He let his pen loose. To the point of arrogance. As it should be.
So that's what I told them. Every writer must pick an idea, then explore it on the page, without inhibition. Make your pen sing. Get your feelings down on the page, you can always edit it later, find a better way of saying it, but get the inspiration down while it's fresh, in any words you can find.
I hope this helps you as well.
Cheers...
T.R.E.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>