Words, words, word...

[fajrdrako]

I wish I understood creativity.

I go for days without writing anything. Sometimes in an evening I'll sit down at my computer and stare at my works in progress, and even though I know what I'm writing and what I want to do with it, the words don't come. However much I stare at the monitor, however much I concentrate or bleed or wait patiently or nurture ideas, the words don't come.

Then other days. Today, for example. It's totally, totally inconvenient, but I have two new stories suddenly blossoming in my head. If I could drop several thousand words into existence without typing, there they would be - intact already in my head. I could start writing the stories at any point. I know exactly what they are, beginning to end. And (flush with that newly-formed enthusiasm for a story in its initial stages) these stories are not just intact, they are good.

And I have no time to write. I'm at work, dammit, and I have a lot of work, and things to catch up on, and no time to even think about these unwritten (but complete) stories.

Fate is unkind.

What I fear is that by the time I can sit down to write them down.... They'll be gone. Pfft. As if they never existed. When they are, at the moment, so real and immediate, from concept to punctuation.

Comments

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

I HATE THAT.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yeah. One does what one can. But... the stuff that gets away? It's precious.

[toraks.livejournal.com]

*hugs* that sounds frustrating!

I hope you can still manage to get them down the way they are in your head!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I hope so. It looks... promising, if I get to write the rest tonight. Wrote several pages on the bus on the way home yesterday, and managed not to get carsick.

[toraks.livejournal.com]

Yay! That's something! ;-)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I didn't have time to write tonight, but tomorrow looks good. Looks as if it will be too snowy to do anything else, anyway!

[vervassal.livejournal.com]

Maybe try the whole notebook thing, and jot them down?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

jot them down

Yup, I'm doing that, and it helps. Thing is... I don't have infinite time for jotting, and the difference between jotting and actually writing the thing is a fine a line, and writing notes wouldn't help because it's the story that's intact in my head and threatens to get away, not the ideas, which are - different.

Still. It hasn't left my head yet, so I think I'm okay.

Hoping.

[nina-ds.livejournal.com]

God, do I know how that feels! I've got two stories stalled, not because I don't know where and how I want them to go, but for some reason, the words just won't come. And yet, sometimes when I'm incredibly busy, words can flow out, and I can write 5000 words in a few hours. I've come to wonder if it isn't at least in part hormonal; I generally do well with deadlines, and I almost always kick into hard deadlines and finish 3-4 days early. Soft deadlines are murder for me, and then guilt piles on.

I will, however, second the notebook idea. If you can't do that, I sometimes do "recitations" in my head, and narrate as if to a dictaphone, just to myself. (Stop looking at me like that!) I find it works really well in the car or while swimming laps - they're times that help me write, even though I can't physically write.

I wrote one of my best articles on the 401 between Windsor and Ottawa.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes. Sometimes the words won't come, even if the concepts are there. And sometimes the words are just there and it's like taking dictation. If only there were a way to make the one thing into the other!

I've come to wonder if it isn't at least in part hormonal

I think it might be. I'm good with hard deadlines, too. Soft deadlines might as well not exist.

Yes, I've been dictating in my head for four days now. I hope it doesn't show!

[ceruleancat.livejournal.com]

Creativity is fickle. I hate that. It's often impossible to get it going, and then without warning, it's pouring all over you and don't even have a receptacle to put it in. *Thinking of sparklebutch mostly now*

I know I have things in my head that have been waiting for years for me to have the time to write them. And I don't play with them, don't allow them to grow, because I really can't dedicate the time or even the mental energy for them yet. But they're not fully formed things. If they were, I'd have lost them ages ago. If I have the words formed, and I don't write them immediately, they're gone.

I hope yours don't disappear on you.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Creativity is fickle.

It is, and why should it be? Is that just to drive writers nuts? Does the same thing happen to artists and musicians?

then without warning, it's pouring all over you and don't even have a receptacle to put it in.

It's a happy feeling (at least, creative output, even if useless, tends to make me feel happy) but it's also frustrating. And if you just lose a story, which can so easily happen, there's a sense of grieving for the loss, too, or the lost opprotunity.

*Thinking of sparklebutch mostly now*

Hugs to both of you for the thought - !

If I have the words formed, and I don't write them immediately, they're gone.

Yes, of course. Which is why: once it's on paper, it's gone. It can stew in my head for weeks or months, but at a certain point it declares itself no longer in the creative-growing stage and pfft, that's it. I look at a story I wrote a month ago and think, "What is this? Did I write that? What's that one about?" Once it's out of the head, it's gone, it's like reading a story by a stranger. Which is why it's so hard to remember my old stories sometimes. And sometimes there's that thrill of reading a forgotten story on my hard drive, or in a zine, and I thank, "Damn, this one's good. This author has the characters pegged perfectly. Who wrote this? Oh. It's me!"

Hee. Rare but precious moments.

I think I have enough of the current story down in bits and pieces in my notebook that I won't lose it, but I can't leave it much longer. And I don't want to lose the climax and resolution, which are still sketchy.

Thank goodness there's a weekend coming up.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

Aargh. You too? Brilliant ideas on the bus are all right, because I've always got a notebook with me to jot down the outline of it, but in the bath... and it's whole chunks of dialogue...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, I too always have a notebook (except when I don't, by accident) and that's helpful. Some days I can write on the bus - last night I wrote several pages on the way home. Will I be able to decipher it? I hope so!

Other days, just getting out a pen will make me carsick. So, no go. It stays bottled up in the head.

And I know from experience that whole stories can stay bottled up in my head for days or weeks, but at some point they just disappear, never to be heard of again. The trick is to get them on paper while they are still there.

Tonight, I hope.

And just hope that tonight the cascade of words is still flowing.

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

Can you call yourself and dictate them (at least the bare bones) to your voicemail, to be transcribed later?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

No. I can't write verbally at all. I can't dictate. It just isn't the way my creative process works. It can be all there in my head, word-perfect, but I wouldn't be able to say it. I can write it, either longhand or with typing.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Yeah, what IS up with that?? It's always in the middle of finals / midterm / major move in my life that I'm FULL of Eden creativity. ARGH!!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's the way it goes. Always. And in all these years I've yet to figure out why. Easy to think of it as fluctuations of energy level, but it's more complex than that - and it doesn't seem to be dependent on whether I'm tired or not. I can sometimes write when tired just fine.