Write Already!

Tommeh Bell, how do you write?

My writing space

The creative process is different for everyone. For non-creative people they think there is a formula that all of us artsy people use to pump out novels, paintings, musical scores or what have you. 

Pen+Time+caffeine+ sugar= best seller.

No don't get me wrong this maybe the formula that gets it done. I'm not saying it can't, but what I am saying is that its not that easy. Nor is it that easy to nail down. 

The process varies from one person to the next and what works for Jane Smith night not work for you and it certainly might isn't going to work for me. 

My mom is notorious for picking my writing time as the exact moment she wants to strike up a conversation with me. Not understanding that once I get into grove that the slightest jolt will shatter my concentration and the carefully constructed sentences that I have spent countless hours working on. Ok sometimes it isn't that dramatic but most of the time it is. 

Non-creatives think its easy to jump in and out of the head space we have to be in to be our most creative. I mean we should be ale to just sit down and pump out the next great American novel or masterpiece. Its hard to get them to understand how we work. 

Well I know its hard for me to explain to my family how and why I write. The why I write is something I will tackle at a later time. To them writing is a hobby. Something to do to pass the time. Sure they read books. I come from a family of nerds after all. We even all wear glasses just to keep up appearances. However for them being a writer is not a profession. Yeah they understand you can make money from selling your thesis or what have you, but they are constantly reminding me to have a "real" job to pay the bills. 

Hell I still can't get them to understand why I love NaNoWriMo. A competition with no "real" prizes at the end.

So the time to sit down and put down my novel is drawing nearer. Its only been two weeks since the end of Camp NaNo and I've finally gotten my brain to start functioning again. Job training in Chicago during the last week of NaNo not withstanding. Now I have time to actually think,

Sitting down to plot out my current Camp NaNoWriMo novel got me to thinking about how I write. Like the actual physical mechanics of how a story goes from my head to my fingers to the page.

I've read through a few FAQ pages of my favorite authors and "how do you write," is one of the reoccurring questions.  Not I am not comparing myself to Mercedes Lackey or JK Rowling ...yet, but still I know there will come a time when someone will ask me how I write. So here is my answer.

Writing Essentials 

Every writer has a bag of tricks that they use to help them write. They are called writing essentials.
I love my MAC who is aptly named Appa, because let's face it I love Avatar: The Last Airbender. I write on my computer. I've tried writing long hang. I suck at it. Seriously after like a page and a half my hand starts to cramp. Call my lazy if you want to, but that's why I bought my MAC. That is not to say that I plot and outline on my computer. I do that long hand in a series of composition books. I just wait for the back to school sale to by a bunch of them at a time. Staples usually have them for 50 cents in August.

Personally I seem to be at the peak of my creative apex at night. From dusk to the early morning light my creative juices flow like a river. Which is great because I'm a night owl. Its the one good thing I can thank my dad for. I remember sitting up with him during the night having Nightmare on Elm Street and Rocky marathons while my mom was in and out of hospitals. My mom was a sickly little thing when I was younger so we had a lot of time on our collective hands. It was fun times all around.

I guess I can thank my dad for my love of the silver screen and the boob tube as well. That is a different blog entirely. 

The above picture is a snapshot of my writing space. I don't have a dedicated office or writing space just yet. It something I am working towards. As you can tell that's a glass dining room table that is currently under a mountain of library books, plotting composition books and notebook with the odd Scooby movie popping up here and there. 

Unfortunately this table is Grand Central station, the luggage and mail catch-all, the algonquin roundtable and everything in between for our family. So the only time I can catch a moment alone to delve into the lives of my characters and my plot is at night when the rest of the house is slumbering.

Like many writers I have a noveling soundtrack. It used to contain all my favorite hip hop, pop, and R&B songs. Which worked great when I was in my urban fantasy vampire and werewolf phase. That lasted a few years. Now that I'm more into my fairy tale remakes I find myself listening to movie soundtracks. Inception, Lord of the Rings and Alice in Wonderland are my favorites. Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer are my favorite composers.

Writer Fuel

Now that we have a time, and a place, and the music lets move on to the fuel. Writing is just as physically demanding as it is mentally. We are sitting for hours on end typing away or writing long hand. It puts a strain on the back, the eyes, the wrists and hands. Just like any sport you have to prepare yourself.

I like to start with food. I will freely admit that I am a bit of a junk food addict. I like my peanut butter M&Ms, my Sea Salt Carmel gelato as much as the next girl. But I couldn't live like that. So I beef up on my bowl of Special K Fruit & yogurt with vanilla Silk, my special K bars and my Jersey Mikes turkey and bacon subs. Just with any physical activity you have to strike a balance between carbs for sustained activity and protein for fuel. Sugar is literally the icing on the cake.

Sidenote: Life isn't worth living without my Cherry Poptarts.

My Process

This is where we get down to business. The actual writing part. Some people will tell you they are pantsers. Meaning they write by flying by the seats of their respective pants. I thought I was that sort of writer. My first foray into NaNoWriMo showed me I wasn't that sort of writer. I wrote myself into a never-ending loop that nearly drove me insane. 

I am a writer on the other end of the spectrum. I'm a planner down to my French tips. I have to plan out everything. From the characters, to the setting, to the plot, even to the chapter outlines. Me I start with my plot. Not that my story is purely plot driven, but my starting point is the plot. After I've got the bare bones of my plot going I start adding in my characters. During the plotting process I nail down my main character. So now its all about the supporting characters. 

As a side note all of my main characters are African American females. As a black female myself I don't find a lot of us starring in fantasy, sci-fi. urban fantasy books. Hell we don't star in a lot of books to be sure, but I read mostly fantasy so that's what I base my assessment on. The majority of my main characters are POC (people of color). 

Depends on how I feel while I'm plotting on the amount of detail I go into with my characters. Some day I write out full bios down to their favorite color. Other days I just get the bare bone facts cemented. I like to start with their names. I like characters with rememberable names. I would never use Sally, Jane, or Sue as a name. I have a thing for female with male names like Ryan, Kyle, Dillon, Devon. If I can't get the name right I can't picture their face. If I can't picture their face the character never comes together for me. I like to start superficially and then delve deeper into my characters. I've tried to do it other ways and it just doesn't work for me. Which is alright because this is me we are talking about. 

Once I can picture them I can see them in my plot. That's when I can sit down to start outlining my chapters. I can't stress how important that is for a writer like me. If I don't take the time to plot out my chapters I'm liable to just write nonsense till the second coming. My mind had tendency to wander. I keep it reined in with my outline. I know where I'm supposed to go and I have an idea of how to get there. I am not saying that sometimes my fingers don't take a different approach from what I plotted out.  They do. My characters may start acting up and changing the plot around on me or the plot itself might want to go left when I want it to go right. It happens. I do a little bit of pantsing in that aspect. Its ok to let your story evolve organically.

You can't be so set in stone that you don't let your characters and the plot develop on its own. You can always go back and edit later if something just doesn't make sense or if you've written yourself into a corner. 

Some people will tell you to start writing at the beginning and write till you hit the end. Sometimes I follow this roadmap. Sometimes I don't. Especially if I run into writer's block. I find leaving the scene you are in to jump into another one is a cure-all for writer's block. This is where that plot outline comes in handy. Since you know where you need to go jumping in and out of scenes is easy.

That's ladies and gents is how I, Tommeh Bell write. I will address my editing process in another post. Happy writing my Belles!!