Still digging? Always dig, dig, dig.*

I hate this time in the creative process.

I have some vague idea of what I want to write about, but can't get a handle on a story or a character or much of anything else.  I want to be writing, not thinking.

And thinking is only vaguely what I call this part of the process.  Ruminating is probably a better word.  Chewing my cud.  And right now, I don't like the taste, but if I don't keep chewing, nothing happens.

Certainly, I could drop the whole thing and just move on to an idea that has a little flesh already on the bones.  I have such ideas and if nothing comes in another few days or weeks, that is what I will do, but for now... Always chew, chew, chew.

So, my mentor told me I should be writing about what I am passionate about.  Doesn't every book ever written on the process of writing make this recommendation?  And I do that... sometimes.

For me the process of finding ideas is both head and heart.

Head - I listen to the news.  I read stuff that interests me.  I talk to friends and strangers.  I listen to music.  I think about my past.  I look stuff up on the internet.  Ideas come.  Ideas I like.  These are not ideas that wring truth from my soul.  I'm just curious.  There is a spark of interest that I can fan into a flame of a story.  I do research, I create characters, and give them stuff to do that has meaning for them and then I write that stuff down.  After a few weeks, I have a finished script.  I have written many fine things this way.  Pieces I am very proud of and that people like.

Heart - I have written a small number of pieces this way.  I don't know what the process is here.  An idea appears from... my fear, my anger, my sorrow.  What to write is usually obvious.  I often do some research, but not always.  I don't often do much preliminary writing  (character sketches, outlines, various notes, etc.)  I just jump in, because I know what I want to say and how I want to say it.  The writing of goes very fast.  People who have read the pieces like them very much, but they tend to be small stories that are a little weird.  When I was writing screenplays, this was a problem.  Not so much of a problem for a playwright.

And now, I seem to be trying to converge the two.

No spark yet, and I WANT A SPARK.

Breathe... breathe.


*George Bernard Shaw - Back to Methuselah