Today I start the mini-remodel of my kitchen. I was supposed to start it yesterday, but the handyman who was supposed to help me couldn’t get here (the cold killed his car.) It was just as well — the night before had been my company holiday party, and I seriously over-indulged.
I have many plans for today, plans of bundling up and going out for breakfast, plans of browning some stew meat and throwing it into a crock pot so there will be stew later tonight, plans of demolition and sewing and maybe even a haircut.
Notice — that originally did not a real plan for writing.
For me, writing takes peace, calm (and generally the judicious application of caffeine.) I’ve been so busy I haven’t made the space in my head for the words. I do actually plan on writing this morning, journaling a little while eating breakfast, and I’ll take what I need for working on chapter twelve as well.
My nephew once described writing as that time just before it snows. That quiet, that peace, bursting with possibilities. Then the magic of the words, either coming down in a blizzard or gently, one at a time.
What does writing feel like to you? This isn’t completely accurate for me — it’s somewhat romanticized. But I’d rather go write than try to figure it out at this point. (^_^)
Writing is breathing. No, writing is eating really good food; you want to do it all the time but you know you can’t, so life gets in the way. Writing feels like what I do. When it is working the world goes away.
For me writing is like possession, which is probably why I seemingly do so little of it. Usually I have to wait for even the tiniest hint of inspiration (rarely does just sitting down and doing it work), and when I am writing it feels like I’ve tapped into a higher part of my brain. Somewhere not quite in normal consciousness. Because there are words coming out of my fingers that I probably have known all along, but wouldn’t have been able to use in a sentence five minutes before.
The weirdest and most magical thing to me is when a detail will come out that’s so right it’s scary–like, say my character is a medieval knight or a dentist or something, and they will do things that I could swear I didn’t KNOW about their profession. Intellectually, I know the knowledge must have been swimming around in my brain somewhere, but I DID NOT KNOW BEFORE I WROTE IT!