When you don't know what else to write about, write about writing! One of the most difficult things I have found in my writing is not getting inspired, it is managing all the simultaneous inspirations that are always spinning through my head. An overabundance of ideas is both a blessing and a curse. I have numerous examples of great literary visions that stall completely when I put pen to paper.
Getting ideas is fairly predictable for me. Seeing their endpoint in a grand unveiling of storytelling is a most simple matter. It's that tiny part in between that always seems to be a nagging problem. Point A to Point B. The problem with it is that the particular story I'm inspired to write at any given moment is ruled by an ethereal, mysterious, and certainly complex process that I may never understand. So, there are usually around six simultaneous Point A's trying to reach six simultaneous Point B's. Huge problem.
My friends, I believe I have solved my problem thanks to taking a page from film. There are many similarities between literature and film, especially on a philosophical level. Obviously, both require a vision. Both require the ability to take and weave complex elements into a cohesive story. Both need editing, and in my case, self-editing. Both are essentially like sculpture. Their success is in channeling what is basically the madness of creative inspiration into a story understandable beyond the artist himself. So, thanks to film I have a new management strategy for story-writing.
At the end of the day of shooting, a director will usually sit down and watch all of the footage, raw or otherwise, that was shot on that particular day. Intuitively, these collections of footage are called dailies. I, too, have decided to keep a set of dailies for each story that I write. This way I can tell the parts of the story I want when I'm inspired to tell them, and then reassemble them in the main file. If I get stalled while writing in the main file, I can go to the dailies. Or, if one character or part of the story in the dailies stalls, I can stop and move on to another one.
Sometimes, I believe I have a measure of control over my creative abilities that I don't, in fact, have. It is a mistake to think that I can completely direct creative inspiration. But, I believe a strategy like this will allow me to harness it. Who knows? Maybe my productivity will jump up a notch.
1 comment:
What a great idea! Sometimes, I've found that writing a later "scene" helps direct the path to get to it, too, and it helps inform how I write the scenes that come before it. But I never thought about having dailies as a road map to keep me from getting too far astray. The name "dailies" is also a good reminder to keep writing daily so there is always something to review!
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