Diana Gabaldon’s writing process

I love hearing other authors talk about their process. Diana Gabaldon's is similar to mine, in that she works on several at once.

What about you - do you concentrate on one at a time? Or find it helps your flow to switch between a few?

Margaret Atwood's creative process

I'm still psyched from seeing Margaret Atwood at her reading Tuesday night, and booksigning yesterday. Ack! I never thought I'd get to meet my literary idol. She's amazing.

I was especially inspired by her answer when someone asked why she writes in so many different forms - poetry, speculative, literary, you name it. She said: "Because nobody ever told me not to." A great reminder to one of my writing rules - go with your gut.

One of the highlights of her reading came at the end, when she actually sang the theme song for the fictional Mole Day, and ended with audience participation.

Some have criticized her for rejecting labels of her work. Her book In Other Worlds (of which I now have a signed copy - woo hoo!) delves into this, but basically, she said most of her work which others want to label as SciFi take after the Jules Verne model, which "has its feet in plausibility, and such a thing is theoretically possible."

When an audience member questioned the world for A Handmaid's Tale, she cautioned that "any set of human laws can be reversed. They're made up by people. After 9/11, The Patriot Act passed with barely a blink."

Here's another treat - she shares her creative process:



And a little more advice. :)

In the flow

The past two weekends, I tore up the keyboard. Last weekend especially, when I added 12k to a story I'd begun more than two years ago. Then, this past weekend, I finished up the novella and with my critique partners' help, sent it out on submission.

Why now? How did I manage to jump into the flow of that story, when more than a dozen await my attention?

For me, stories gel at their own rate. Being a pantser rather than a plotter, I'll start a story and sometimes it will peter out, much like wet kindling resisting attempts to ignite it. I don't force the story; I know it will come at its own rate. Finally it hit me, that I needed to incorporate certain elements I had for another story rather than making them two separate stories. Once I did that, I built on what I already had, and was soon in the flow.

The flow is one of my favorite places to be. Reality falls away. There's no time. No worry. Just me and my characters, in their world. I type as fast as I can to keep up with the story-movie in my head.

The flow fascinates me. I wish I could plug into that mode at will, but it doesn't always come when I want it to. On Sunday, for example, as much as I wanted to dive back in, I only spun my wheels and hardly got any writing done. Oh, a few blog posts, and some other tasks, but not the meat of writing. I was disappointed.

Especially with NaNoWriMo coming up. Although I don't plot, I recognize the value of thinking ahead. Storyfix has had some great posts on tips to ready for NaNoWriMo - if you've signed up, you should check them out.

I know I won't be able to write 2k a day, with my crazy schedule. If I can manage to get back into the flow, I might be able to make some real progress on weekends. Not likely to the full 50k, but what I'm aiming for is a good start on a novel - Book Two of The Goddess Connection.

Apparently some have made a science out of "flow."

I found this chart online - interesting how "flow" is wedged between "boredom" and "panic/anxiety/worry" isn't it?

Here's a video featuring Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi, who founded the Flow Institute.



Essentially, Csíkszentmihályi identifies the following ten factors as accompanying an experience of flow:

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities). Moreover, the challenge level and skill level should both be high.
2. Concentrating, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
4. Distorted sense of time, one's subjective experience of time is altered.
5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
9. A lack of awareness of bodily needs (to the extent that one can reach a point of great hunger or fatigue without realizing it)
10. Absorption into the activity, narrowing of the focus of awareness down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.

Yep, sounds familiar. Now, how do I add that switch to myself so I can get there right away?

That's where thought comes in. Maybe it's a way of mapping out the brain ahead of time, but I think simply thinking - or daydreaming - (often called navel gazing) is an important part of writing. Characters live in my head while I'm not writing. Prepping the story for me. Helping it to gel into its final form. They know where it needs to go. So I follow them.

What about you? Any tricks for getting into the flow?

Maddeningly creative?

The blog tour continues at Immortyl Revolution, where I wax nostalgic on the creative process. Are we creative types a little nutty? Hm. Could that be why it takes me so long to organize my book shelf? And why my characters seem more real than some people? :) Come share your views, and your process.

The post also contains links to a few videos of authors Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat Pray Love) and Amy Tan (The Bonesetter's Daughter) discussing their own views on the creative process. A bit long but worth a look.

Tomorrow, I also have a fun interview at Sonnet O'Dell's blog, and a special guest here.

Maddeningly creative?

Yesterday I linked my MissMakeAMovie post to a very humorous and insightful video of Elizabeth Gilbert discussing the effect of creative genius on writers. I’ve often felt that my stories come from somewhere else, The Great Beyond, not necessarily a specific “muse” assigned to me as writers so often ascribe their work. Gilbert described the poet feeling the poem coming toward her, and her sudden urgency in needing to catch it, put it to paper before it went on to find another poet who could translate it. Strange as it sounds, I think it’s not far off the mark. I believe there’s an immense writerly well of thought and ideas that percolates constantly, that sends out its signals and those of us with a particular sensitivity to it can capture it, some more astutely than others. That, I believe, is why similar stories appear at about the same time. There is no original premise; we all put our own particular spin on our stories.
Some stories, I’ve felt, have come through me fully formed, and I wrote as fast as I could to get it all down while its essence was still strong. This happened in August, when I happened across a description of a present-day entertainment that coincided with research I was doing. The idea came together so quickly, I wrote constantly through September, and finished an urban fantasy novel.
Amy Tan’s discussion of creative process touched on the right and left brain function, and the possibility of an abnormal chromosome in creative people’s brains. Could creativity be caused by a physical ailment, such as temporal lobe seizures? If you fail to live up to your potential, blame The Muse Deficit, she jokes. Can you really be said to fail if you’re still trying? As Albert Einstein said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”. I have felt the fortuitous serendipity of The Universe providing timely cues and ideas that I’ve layered into stories. The subconscious plays into it, because it is more well-informed than the conscious brain, and collects all the various necessary pieces, which our conscious brain can then connect into something (hopefully) coherent. Perhaps that explains why I'm such a strong believer in going with your gut. Your gut knows things. Things it will share, if you are open to them.
Likewise with the historical romance novel I only this week finished the first draft. I’d visited a city five years ago whose history captivated my imagination. I spent an entire day in the library, copying old articles and letters and anything I could find. I bought books from the local historical society. I visited two local museums. I actually visualized the story in a very powerful moment while at one of those museums. I packed all the material in my suitcase and brought it home, and it sat. For five years. Why? I think it’s because I had to first discover the romance novel in all its subgenres. It’s a great story, but honestly, I don’t think any publisher would have viewed it as viable in the marketplace unless layered onto a romance.
BTW, I’m so glad Harper Studio featured Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk on their blog, or I’d have never discovered Ted.com. Thanks, Harper Studio! We all need a little reminder of why we need to write, and that we’re not so crazy after all. Alternately, we could remember Mark Twain’s apt view: When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.