NOTES ON WRITING

 

Forest Pool.  Study for painting or collage.        © by Ruth Zachary

Honor Your Own Best Writing Process

Some people write better in the morning. Others do better in the middle of the night.

Some people write best at the keyboard, others in natural handwriting. 

Emotions are often stimulating and provide impetus for writing with feeling. Pay attention to anger, 

grief, fear, resistance. Jot down notes about the event, person, condition,  situation, etc, which 

stimulated the emotion.

You may find your best writing only occurs after you are into the second or third revision.

            A writing workshop situation where you turn in your first draft may not be your best 

            space for writing, while pressure may stimulate others to write.

            Prominent novelists may revise from ten to thirty times, so you are not alone.

Some people have to go through a habitual sequence  or ritueal before they write.

A particular space may be the most comfortable for you to write well. Certain conditions,

such as quiet may even be required for you to write at all.

Notice whether your best writing is more linear, concrete, analytical and objective, or if it is more intuitive. Poetry often is intuitive, based on imagery, involving the senses, and is subjective. 

Set up the conditions for writing, in which you write most naturallly if that works best for you. 

Practice makes intuition more accessible. 

Routinely put yourself in a meditative state before starting to write. 

Try to pursue conditions which support your style. 

Pay attention to the conditions which have encouraged your creativity. 

Create the environment and conditions for your own best process. Don't just court the Muse of Writing, but court your own personal Muse of Creativity.

List the best conditions for you to do your best writing, and create that for yourself.

Activities, which may put you into a right-brained or intuitive space, conducive to creativity:

                        Waking, having coffee, tea or ambrosia or elixer from the gods.

                        Darkness, early morning dawn or dusk

                        Driving or riding (don’t write while driving)- pull over and jot down ideas.

                        Traveling through landscape, including walking.

                        Shower- Ideas come, hold those thoughts, don't let them run down the drain.

                        Drugs- (legal) - coffee, alcohol

                        Dreams

                        Exercise

                        On the beach

                        Gardening

                        Music

                        Dance

                        Repetitive chores.

                        Meditation

                        Daydream residue

                        Automatic writing 

 

            

See more of Ruth Zachary's Organic Abstractions at - http://ruthzachary.blogspot.com

 

Writing and images for this post are the copyright © of Ruth Zachary