I FINALLY have a story that I’ve been able to think of from beginning to [almost] end. I think I have struggled for so long to find something that appealed to me, but lately, a storyline has been coming together in my mind, and I spent several days considering the idea before fleshing out a portion of the story onto the computer. In just three days, I’d written over 25,000 words, or roughly 100 novel-sized pages, and I’ve started to slow down to a reasonable rate of about 1,000-2,000 words over the last 24 hours.
It’s probably not entirely useful to take a break from the creative writing in order to share on my blog, but I’m beginning to see the real value of keeping the imagination going, and I wanted to share a little of what I’m experiencing in this process. I’ve been wanting for so long to write, but the right story never quite came, and I lost interest in my own storyline before I could properly come up with the real detail of the story. This story has been almost easy to write, almost. I’m still having to do a load of research on my subjects, but I’ve got a pretty good memory for random facts, so I’ve just been doing the research as I come to a sticky spot, and then I move on. The only thing I have written down is dates, and I’ve got a stack of calendars spanning several years in order to keep my days and dates straight.
One thing I want to say, in case someone is in need of inspiration. I’ve been told this several times, but it’s worth repeating. Keep writing. Just write something. Write short stories if you can’t think of long ones, but keep the imagination and the creativity flowing, and you’ll eventually hit on something you love to write. I should also add that if you’re struggling with some other creative form, such as music or art, just keep doing it. I found that once the creative juices were flowing in my writing, I was also able to work creatively on a sketch, which was the first time I’d sketched anything in several years, and the first time I’d done a pencil drawing attempting shadow.
Being creative is sort of like solving a puzzle. Except that the puzzle is a blank sheet of paper, or some other clean slate that you have to fill. Once you find your starting point, don’t look back, just get the puzzle solved. Even if you start somewhere unconventional. In the story I’m writing I started with the climax of the story and worked my way backward. I’m now filling in the detail where necessary, just as if I were filling in shadow on a pencil sketch.
For now, I’ll leave you with a quote I posted on Facebook earlier.
“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
- George Orwell
Lucky you for getting an idea! And oh my word, who on earth write 25,000 words in three days? I can’t believe it! Although my friend wrote 60,000 words in a single day… that’s a bit much. Anyway, great advice on keeping the inspiration. I’ve had a stall in my writing lately. Good luck writing!
I think I type pretty fast. I don’t know how many words per minute, but obviously quite a few. I also had a lot of the story “written” in my head before writing it all down and I have a lot of free time. So I just wrote like crazy whenever I had a free moment or hour. I can’t imagine having 60k words to write in one day. That seems like more than I could think of.