A peculiar writing process..

[skreidle]

I don't know how common this sort of thing is in the world of authors.. but it's odd, to me, to read Vern's writing log as she forges ahead for NaNoWriMo, acting more as a channel for the events she describes than their creator. It's as if the writing is barely under her conscious control, with the story flowing freely from her subconscious or somewhere else entirely..
(Not just for NNWM, as she's been writing other scenes, stories, and books as well, but the witing log is solely about her writing.)


Unrelated: Aww, no Friday Five this week. :(

Comments

[blistex.livejournal.com]

I think that's fairly common, actually. I know a lot of people who feel that way, myself included. It's very common to hear an author say that they have no idea what's going to happen at the end of the book, but they'll find out once it happens. It's like you think of characters and an initial situation, a basic framework of ideas, and then you start writing it. Sometimes when you're writing it, other things come out, the character wants to do something else, or something else just suddenly happens and spawns another event... it's true. :P

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Wacky.

It's probably because I've never written even a short story, that I find it so strange.. all my writing--save for some rare poetry--hasn't been for creative purposes, so it's had a lot more structure and control..

[bluekitsune.livejournal.com]

Actually, that's exactly how it works for me... My characters make themselves know very insistently, or (even stranger, to me) a poem/song INSISTS on being written. I recently heard James Taylor describe his work as "channeling" and that he thought he didn't really write the songs, he just happened to hear them first. That's how it is for me. If I have to force something, it generally isn't very good. Of course, I'm strange in that I like characters best. I don't care much about plot... so actually writing a story is difficult, because I'm perfectly happy to just sit them in a coffee shop and not do much. Character study does not a novel make, IMO.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I'm just not that imaginative.. my most common artwork, Celtic knotwork, is fairly structured; I can sketch from an object in front of me but not out of my head; I've never really tried much in the way of creative writing--but I'm sure if I did, it would be patterned off of events or stories I'd experienced and read before.