How To Find Something Worth Writing About
I'm often asked where my ideas come from and it feels inadequate to say I'm not sure, so I'm going to try to capture my process with all its half-formed vagaries from start to finish.
This blog is about the first phase: How to find something worth writing about.
Finding inspiration is often regarded as a tricky and somewhat magical process that is difficult to explain, much less replicate on demand, akin to the formation of a tornado. You can’t fully explain it, you can’t predict it, and even when all the scientifically proven elements are present, there’s still that unknowable quality where everything must be just right for success.
And whilst everyone comes at the creative process from their own angle and with their own style, this is how I do it, assuming of course that by some miracle the idea hasn’t arrived in my head fully formed (which happens, though infrequently), and I’m sharing it with you in the hope that it leads you to discover and enhance your own unique process for inspiration and style.
Let the process begin!
Phase One: The Inspiration
It starts whether I want it to or not, whether I'm ready or not, and irregardless of where I am and what I'm doing. I stopped “trying” to write a couple of decades ago. To “try” to write zapped all pleasure from the process, like an energy vampire. Instead, at this stage, I simply try to put on paper that which runs through my head. It might be an idea or a line of poetry, a joke I heard, a series of words I associated with an experience, a fact that struck me as significant, or anything that plays on the endless loop in my head saying “don't forget me” when I'm trying to concentrate on other things.
This results in scraps of paper, messy crossed-out pages with sentences running in all directions like some weird topographical map, and sometimes even sketches or bits of ephemera. Whatever it is, it’s always messy and never something I willingly show to anyone. After all, it’s not intended to be for anyone but me.
Inspiration is about making connections between the seemingly unconnected to create something new. I find the hardest part of this stage, is remembering NOT to edit before it's on the paper. It’s easy to say, “oh not that thought”, or “I can’t write that down here”, but all thoughts that get caught in the net of consciousness at this time are relevant. None are wrong. Write all of them down!
Then over hours, days, weeks, sometimes years, I reread my messy page(s) and allow the mental process to start again. I mentally push at the mess. Can I form a sentence with it? Can I see images? Has it got rhythm? Sometimes I add stuff. Sometimes I take away. But I know the inspiration has fully hatched into an idea when all my mess culminates into a complete first draft (poetry or prose or visual). Still messy, but complete. If that never happens it was only ever just an inspiration…
That's where It starts.
Then I, take over!
Thank you for coming on my creative journey with me! I truly hope that it ignites your inspiration. Watch this space for the next instalment: Phase 2- The Draft.
Keep pushing your creative boundaries and happy joy chasing!
Monique x
P.S. These are early images from the drafting process I used for my picture book The Warming Principle.
