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mbarker.livejournal.comOriginal posting 13 Nov 2010
Oh, drat. Over here http://community.livejournal.com/writercises/144276.html the aged nano notes are all about giving your characters some complications with health -- like coughing, sneezing, and all that. I finally gave in this morning, since we were joining friends for lunch, and dosed myself with my favorite allergy nostrum. Dried things up, but of course I've also got ringing ears, and will probably fall over later. Anyway... I don't particularly want to think about coughs and colds and other health issues (or are those unhealthy issues?). So let's just toss that tissue (we don't call them by trademarked names, right?) into the trashcan and move along.
One of the things I've particularly noticed during this round of nanowrimowing is my own need for at least a minimum bit of organizing, of scribbling and thinking through some frameworking before or during the writing. I tend to use bullet lists, especially for non-fiction writing -- just lists of points, often in short phrases, sometimes in questions. Scribble down the three or four points, arrange or rearrange quickly, then sit down and expand them out. And sometimes I do hand-written notes, which I find makes the dictation much smoother. If I sit down without anything, well, I kind of end up making lists on screen, which is okay, but somehow hand-written ones are better for me. I feel more productive if I scribble the notes on paper, then dictate -- and tearing up and tossing the notes is a nice feeling.
Which brings me back to my favorite checklists and such. I hadn't really used them to prepare, and I'm thinking that was a mistake. Now I'm going back and filling in... oh, some background and such... that I might have been reminded to think through if I had used my little checklists. Might not, and indeed, the rush of nanowrimo helps focus my attention on what I really need at this point to write the next chunk, instead of letting me get lost in worldbuilding and other delights of non-productive diddling. But still, I think there's a little balance needed, perhaps thinking through the checklists briefly while preparing, then doing some freewriting (a la nanowrimo) to expand and explore, then go back to the checklists sometimes to see how we're doing on figuring it all out?
While I'm wondering around (isn't it nice how that word and wandering can overlay?), take a listen over here (it's a podcast) http://www.writingexcuses.com/2010/11/07/writing-excuses-5-10-john-brown-and-the-creative-process/ where they talk about getting ideas. John Brown talks about creativity as a process, finding a problem, asking questions, and answering them. And, of course, the questions in the writing process turn around issues such as characters, setting, problem, and plot. Find something around you that excites you, then start asking questions about how to frame that with characters, setting, a problem for the characters, and a plot for them to try to resolve it. And John talks about using lists, writing down multiple possibilities, multiple solutions, until you've got a couple that sound good -- and then exploring those in writing. Fun stuff! And again, there's that notion that you need some thinking time, perhaps organizing it in lists, notes, and so forth, in between the wordmill time. But I have to admit, I think part of the lesson of nanowrimo is that doing it a little bit at a time, as you need it, may be a better way than spending a lot of time trying to figure it out ahead of time. You just don't know what you need until you try a bit, so more of an on-the-fly approach works well.
Last, but definitely not least, over here http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/11/brain-rewards.html there's some discussion about the idea that we prefer feeling certain -- our brain rewards us for being convinced that we're right. If so, this helps to explain confirmation bias (we look for evidence that matches our beliefs, and discount, avoid, and ignore evidence that doesn't fit). Which kind of makes that notion of pushing for a quota of ideas really important. Heck, even the idea of looking for at least a couple of good answers, not stopping with the first thing that you think of, starts to look like a good way to fight our own inherent bias to stop and ignore any other possibilities.
Well, that's enough mumbling for today. Back to the wordmill!
Write!
Oh, drat. Over here http://community.livejournal.com/writercises/144276.html the aged nano notes are all about giving your characters some complications with health -- like coughing, sneezing, and all that. I finally gave in this morning, since we were joining friends for lunch, and dosed myself with my favorite allergy nostrum. Dried things up, but of course I've also got ringing ears, and will probably fall over later. Anyway... I don't particularly want to think about coughs and colds and other health issues (or are those unhealthy issues?). So let's just toss that tissue (we don't call them by trademarked names, right?) into the trashcan and move along.
One of the things I've particularly noticed during this round of nanowrimowing is my own need for at least a minimum bit of organizing, of scribbling and thinking through some frameworking before or during the writing. I tend to use bullet lists, especially for non-fiction writing -- just lists of points, often in short phrases, sometimes in questions. Scribble down the three or four points, arrange or rearrange quickly, then sit down and expand them out. And sometimes I do hand-written notes, which I find makes the dictation much smoother. If I sit down without anything, well, I kind of end up making lists on screen, which is okay, but somehow hand-written ones are better for me. I feel more productive if I scribble the notes on paper, then dictate -- and tearing up and tossing the notes is a nice feeling.
Which brings me back to my favorite checklists and such. I hadn't really used them to prepare, and I'm thinking that was a mistake. Now I'm going back and filling in... oh, some background and such... that I might have been reminded to think through if I had used my little checklists. Might not, and indeed, the rush of nanowrimo helps focus my attention on what I really need at this point to write the next chunk, instead of letting me get lost in worldbuilding and other delights of non-productive diddling. But still, I think there's a little balance needed, perhaps thinking through the checklists briefly while preparing, then doing some freewriting (a la nanowrimo) to expand and explore, then go back to the checklists sometimes to see how we're doing on figuring it all out?
While I'm wondering around (isn't it nice how that word and wandering can overlay?), take a listen over here (it's a podcast) http://www.writingexcuses.com/2010/11/07/writing-excuses-5-10-john-brown-and-the-creative-process/ where they talk about getting ideas. John Brown talks about creativity as a process, finding a problem, asking questions, and answering them. And, of course, the questions in the writing process turn around issues such as characters, setting, problem, and plot. Find something around you that excites you, then start asking questions about how to frame that with characters, setting, a problem for the characters, and a plot for them to try to resolve it. And John talks about using lists, writing down multiple possibilities, multiple solutions, until you've got a couple that sound good -- and then exploring those in writing. Fun stuff! And again, there's that notion that you need some thinking time, perhaps organizing it in lists, notes, and so forth, in between the wordmill time. But I have to admit, I think part of the lesson of nanowrimo is that doing it a little bit at a time, as you need it, may be a better way than spending a lot of time trying to figure it out ahead of time. You just don't know what you need until you try a bit, so more of an on-the-fly approach works well.
Last, but definitely not least, over here http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/11/brain-rewards.html there's some discussion about the idea that we prefer feeling certain -- our brain rewards us for being convinced that we're right. If so, this helps to explain confirmation bias (we look for evidence that matches our beliefs, and discount, avoid, and ignore evidence that doesn't fit). Which kind of makes that notion of pushing for a quota of ideas really important. Heck, even the idea of looking for at least a couple of good answers, not stopping with the first thing that you think of, starts to look like a good way to fight our own inherent bias to stop and ignore any other possibilities.
Well, that's enough mumbling for today. Back to the wordmill!
Write!
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