Letting it Flow

The easiest way to write anything is to ignore your surroundings and allow your fingertips to stream your consciousness, through your keyboard, onto your screen. Let the text flow and don't worry about editing.

Writers often complain about the act of writing. Even Charlie Brooker, columnist with The Guardian, will say that when a deadline looms he will do just about anything to keep himself from writing, until he actually has to sit down and get his copy sent in.

It’s a common complaint among writers, one only need to glance at the hash tag for NaNoWriMo on twitter to see how paricipants in this year’s National Novel Writing Month are all tweeting about this very thing. Actually sitting down and writing.

It’s much easier to sit down with a pen and paper than typing, most of us were brought up writing like that. But if, like me, you’re handwriting has become more like ancient hieroglyphics than an eligible grouping of letters, then this method can become most stressful when converting it to type.

Other people suggest talking into a dictaphone and typing it out later. Having interviewed countless number of people and later transcribed the interviews I can assure you this is one of the most tedious operation life can offer.

So here’s a method I have developed and have since found that it is a method employed by many writers. Letting your consciousness flow.

Preparation.

There is very little preparation. Sit down at your computer and depending on how easily you allow yourself get distracted shut down your twitter client, your web browser, your instant messaging applications, and perhaps your mobile phone (and any facebook clients, feed readers, and other such things that may allow your concentration to wain).

Also, when typing on a computer be mindful of what you use as a text editor. Microsoft Word has too many buttons and shiny things to distract you and allows you to play with formatting, that won’t be used, too much. I use a program called WriteRoom it makes the entire workspace go black except for the text, you type.

Now you can find yourself in a comfortable position that for the next period of time, you’ve rationed from your routine to writing, possible distractions are have lowered. The only way your computer will distract you from here on is if it’s not working properly. In which case throw it out the window now and get a new one because you won’t get any writing done.

Where to Start?

Whether you’re writing a report, a review, a feature, a screenplay, a novel, a film script or anything else for that matter, it’s very important to have a rough starting point. Normally with reports and reviews it’s easy to know what the theme will be. The central story is what is being reviewed/reported so the starting point is clear.

But as with many of this year’s NaNoWriMo contestants, the idea was there but the starting point wasn’t. Many budding writers now find themselves faced with the impossible task of completing a 50,000 word novel by the 30th November. Some writers have even mentioned starting again because they ran with the wrong idea or starting point.

All I had for NaNoWriMo was an absence of distractions, when I began to write. I just sat there had a rough idea what I wanted to write about and just started typing. My main character didn’t even develop a name until I reached 8,000 words. Until then I marked his name with an X, and he will remain to be called X in the first 8,000 words until I embark on draft 2.

With your starting point and idea in place just start typing.

Don’t Edit

Don’t change anything, don’t edit! Editing is for afterwards, when you’ve finished typing. Hence why I’m leaving my main character with two names: one before 8,000 words and; one after 8,000 words. The character’s name only came to me during the streaming flow of consciousness in chapter seven.

Once you start typing, don’t stop, even if you know that you have spelled a word incorrectly, leave it there, it in all likelihood won’t be the only word that will be incorrect, that’s what draft 2 is for.

Just allow yourself enough time before a deadline to do a draft 2. Phrases, sentence structures, wording, everything can change in draft 2.

If you feel your language weakening but your ideas are coming, don’t stop to consult a thesaurus, that’s what draft 2 is for. Your use of language might be very repetitive and simple but what you need to remember is that when you start typing don’t stop until what you set out to do has been done. Then comes the changes and refining.

Don’t Listen to the Voices

There’s a little voice in all of us telling us to stop when we stream our consciousness. It tells you: you said that wrong; you used the wrong word there; that paragraph should be earlier, in the piece; etc. Remember, just write for now, the little voice will get it’s turn once draft 1 has been complete.

It’s natural that some people like to be steady, safe and to follow a structure. Many writers do it, and if that works for you, then use it. But the next time you have writer’s block try to stream your consciousness through your fingertips onto a keyboard and see what sort of a story comes out of you about having writer’s block.

Tags: Charlie Brooker/NaNoWriMo/National Novel Writing Month/Streaming Conscious/The Guardian/WriteRoom/Writing
Posted in Blog by Paul |