What is Your Writing Kryptonite?
Let’s nail together the most annoying one
Like most of you, I must slip into the flow to be able to write. Working on a novel series (my first ever) it’s incredibly challenging. I need to dive into my creative bubble and stay there to occupy characters that comprise the cast in my books. Like a super talented and versatile actress, I metamorphose from one person to another, performing various roles on paper. After fleshing them out, I’ve started to feel for these fictional people, too. I think about their distinctive voice to be easily recognised with their specific speech pattern or gestures to reduce the ‘he said, she said’ dialogue tags. I think about the setting and details to enrich the story and give some additional information or clue to the readers. I think about the scenes I’ve written about before and how to keep them spinning until the end. I think about moving the story further without being repetitive, making sense, and remaining believable. Introduce the surprise factor. The list goes on and on.
Once I enter the flow, the writing flows. For me, it’s like being in an agitated dream-like state, like being on the verge. I feel calm and energised, and anxious at the same time. New ideas come out of nowhere, and I write them down. They join the others from before at the back of my mind and run simultaneously, like computer applications. There are so many decisions that I must make. Should I or should I not weave this new idea into my story. Maybe it will prove to be pivotal for scene No 38. But then it will disturb scene No 41. And on it goes. I keep tapping feverishly on the keyboard while jotting down messy notes in my endless number of notebooks on the side. I feel dread and excitement at the same time…
AND THEN LIFE INTERFERES!
I need to answer the door, the phone, because_____you fill in the blank. None of us lives on a deserted island. There are things to do, necessary and essential, to carry on with our lives outside our fictional world.
And as I do, I’m still in my fictional world, and I’m not entirely present and sure what I’m saying to the person in front of me or the other end on the phone. I try, but the creative applications are still in full swing in the back of my brain.
Once the conversation or the thing that needs to be done is over, I try hard to return to that wonderfully prolific creative state. Some days I manage, but others don’t. I feel annoyed and agitated. Not every day is a flow day. And when I know that I have things to attend to, no matter how mundane it is, I push the pause button and the brain applications stop spinning.
Some writers are more affected by this than others. I am discovering that the more I clock up the experience, the less I feel annoyed, on a good day.
Anyway, here is the list I composed on writers’ kryptonite.
It would be great to hear what yours are in the comments section.
Feel free to add something to the list.
WRITERS’ KRYPTONITE:
1. Phone
2. Doorbell
3. Social Media
4. Family
5. Friends
6. Work
7. Housework
8. Netflix etc
9. Video Games
10. Too much booze
11. Too little booze
12. Too many ideas — don’t know where to start
13. Too few ideas — don’t know where to start
14. Lack of sleep
15. Too much sleep
16. Lack of confidence
*In one of my future posts, I will be writing about our sources of inspiration.
