I love this picture because the hot air balloons make me think about all my creative thoughts floating up out of me as I focus on my stories and ideas...
I've read a few blogs lately from other writers talking about the process of how they write.
For me, it's all about bringing my story into my everyday consciousness - whilst, at the same time, letting it bubble away in my subconscious.
I'm always fascinated by the subconscious mind and how it works. How you can struggle for ages to remember a word, then all of a sudden you'll be doing something else later on, having forgotten all about it, and the word you needed will pop into your head.
Which is how I've worked out how my writing works best for me.
First of all, I have to get into a routine. For me personally, I need to write every day to get into the flow of things. But what that actually does is bring my story into my subconscious as well as my conscious, because by focussing on my ideas and stories every day, it means it's fresh in my mind and I'm familiar with it. So then, when I need to get on with the rest of my day, my subconscious mind bubbles away in the background still thinking about it - and I can be hanging out washing, or cooking dinner, and an idea will suddenly pop into my head that'll be about how to develop the story or how to solve a problem that's been bugging me for a bit.
I've decided to carry on with my most recent story rather than develop my second one as it's the one I submitted into a competition to try and get myself an agent. There's some areas of research I have identified, but I also just need to flesh out some of the plot points a bit more so as part of that, I've bought a load of flash cards which I plan to pin up all over my wardrobe at home. What I normally do is break the cards up into three acts, each with their major plot points, then I can add any questions I have, or things I'd like to include in a scene later on - whether it be a quote or a saying, or something the character has to do, maybe a follow-on from an earlier scene.
The flashcards work for me because I need to have an overview of the whole story at the same time - and because I'm a very visual person, so it works to have all these cards pinned up somewhere where I can move them about and reposition them if I need to.
This can be amusing for visitors to my bedroom (which sounds so much juicier than it really is. I just mean G, or my friends!). But by having all the main plot points and scenes pinned up in front of me, I can go away to think about something else - whilst my subconscious carries on thinking about it in the background.
Just like my post the other day, I believe you have to #ruminatetoilluminate
That's me, anyway. But if you have any thoughts or methods of your own, please share.
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