Since I got the day off, and am in an extraordinarily lazy mood, I think it's time to lounge away and read a How To book. This particularly opportune book came to me when I was waiting for some laundry to get done whilst holed up nearby inside a used book store.
I'm not talking about personal laundry when I say 'laundry', I'm talking about the industrial-sized loads of laundry that I am charged with transporting here and there at my latest job but that's a story in itself, one I might write about some day- but not to-day, as I am thoroughly exhausted from dealing with other people's laundry over the 'festive season', which has not been festive at all for those in the laundry business.
The How To book I'm going to read is Stephen King's 'On Writing', writing being something I've been doing like forever, it seems. I've been journaling, jotting things down about this and that and I've been doing it compulsively for decades. Can't not do it, I'm sayin', and I like the way that reads but you'll you'll never get approval for writing things that way from the authors of The Chicago Manual Of Style, which is like the damn Bible that all writing aspirants should, if they want to get anywhere, adhere to.
Having illumed that hallowed tome, which I painfully read, along with some wisps of my backstory, I think that the following might give a description of the method I've developed over the years that converts what's running around in my head to what laboriously used to go down on paper via pen and sometimes pencil then progressed to old timey word processors (thankfully it goes down via portable wireless bluetooth keyboard onto digital 'paper' now). These are things that I have learned and then incorporated into what I will call 'My Process' 'cuz as we know, each person's process is unique- it absolutely has to be- for nobody can do a thing exactly like another person can.
Knowing that the exact duplication of any work of art is impossible, it is however similarly true that reading the words of others about what works for them might be of some benefit and that is the intent that the authors of How To(s) hold when they write How To books on any subject but as far as I am concerned, a lot of How To books later, reading about how somebody else does it many times confuses me and only serves to slow me down. I'll take just a tidbit of useful information from their heaps of advice usually, while I try and digest the rest of their information, information that ultimately only acts as junk food does, there being no nutritional value in it for me.
That being said, the little nuggets of advice I do glean here and there from whatever How To tome I read validate and support the processes I seek to bolster. I have found that those little bits help in larger proportion than one would initially think so they're highly valuable, yeah.
Mark Twain wrote all his books longhand. Can you imagine?
Aaron Burden- Unsplash.com
I definitely ought to mention here that I'm not a Stephen King fan, I haven't read any of his books, but I do know he's super famous and can churn out tomes that captivate a lot of readers so he must be doing something right. Exactly how he does that he might not be able to explain to me in a way that makes sense at all though. Does that makes any sense to you? I hope it does.
Because believe you me, I've read a lot of self help books about many subjects and most of the time they were a waste of time. They didn't change my bad habits much even though I really tried to incorporate their supposed offerings of astute wisdom. I stubbornly went my own way anyway as if destined to. I guess I'm like a lot of people in that way. I love like to give advice, but hate to take it!
However, as concerns writing, deep from the nether regions of things yet unmanifest I'm getting the feeling that I'm going to pull from there some written work of book length and before I sit down at the keyboard again to knock out 2000 or more words a day the thought has come to me that a warm up might be in order. Why not get some inspiration from one of the best in the business?
That'll be a good start, I think. At the end I might not come out with a completed project that the ol' master writer himself would approve of but I will at least have given it the old college try.
I'm going to initiate my book writing project soon, feels like. Here is My Process- and it's a simple one. First, I gather data. Life itself offers reams of data to writers every day. Things you see, talk about, notice, then file away somewhere. It's all stored. It's easier to write about things that you know about than it is to write about things that you have no knowledge or only have cursory knowledge of.
I have no plot in mind. No characters at all. No idea of what I'm going to write about or how long the book is going to be. It has to be in a story format, though. That I have learned. Ideally, I want my story to start off with a bang and run like hell from there until it reaches an exhausting but satisfying finish. That's all I really know, or want to know, beforehand.
Next comes the urge to write. I don't know where this comes from, but it's undeniable when it arrives. Time means nothing then. It's a joy to sit down in a quiet space and let the story begin. Just start. Don't worry about tomorrow. Write down what you feel inspired to write down today, in the moment. From then on it's easy. I know I won't tarry once I start. I'll steadily knock the thing out and my fingers will fly (because I've done this before and found that it works). I won't pause much to go over what I've written because I like it when the words fly hot, inspiration is in the air around me (best way I can put that), and during daydreams or after a night's sleep I'll wake up with the next passage in mind. The worst thing I can do after employing My Process is change anything that was put down because by then the words and the inspiration behind them has long since cooled. It's not time to be second guessing oneself!
That's the way it's gotta be, for me. I can hire somebody later to proofread the thing for typos. I myself could do that but I really ain't that kind because, astrologically speaking, my moon is in Aries. Emotions rise quick in me and subside just as fast. I was born with a short attention span! Believe you me, by the time proofreading time comes around my attention has been long gone, it's off onto another (or most likely onto a multitude) of different projects.
I'll proofread for content only, and change only what is absolutely necessary. Pull on too many threads and you'll pull apart the sweater. Don't want to go there.
Rewriting to me is like starting a completely different book. I find it impossible. Start over if you have to but never rewrite.
Trust that what you're putting down makes sense.
If you're efforting, you're doing it wrong.
The more you do it, the easier it comes.
These are the things I have learned and if any of that was gained from life, myself, or from a How To book I couldn't tell you how or when.
Like I said, it's all stored somewhere.