Of Hamsters, Pantsing and Becoming Creative

I still get a total thrill when people send me pics of my books on the shelves. Maybe one day I'll get over it, but not so far. Could be I'm getting tiresome about it because I showed my mom a pic on my phone that someone sent and said, "photos like this make me so happy!" And she said, "I know," in that *tone* people get, like when you've said something too many times.

But, hey. Look! Me and Guy Gavriel Kay!

Hee hee hee.

So, yeah, I might be also stalling a bit. Whenever I see topics like this week's - Spinning Plates and Weaving Subplots: How do you decide how to balance the main story and the connecting tales? - my brain goes a little fuzzy. In fact, as soon as I see anything in the realm of "how do you decide..." the invisible hamsters in my head start frantically scratching at the inside of my skull.

But I really don't want to write another post that's all an elaborate way of saying "I DECIDE NOTHING, PEOPLE. THE HAMSTERS DECIDE EVERYTHING AND I WRITE IT DOWN, OKAY???"

Instead I'll try to explain myself and why I have the process that I do. Besides the fact that I think every writer has her own process and that it's key for all of us to learn what our process is and own it. A lot of writers - both established and aspiring - spend a lot of time trying to alter their process. They want to write faster and better, which is admirable, so they try all kinds of things to make that happen. While I see people able to tweak and refine what they're doing, I rarely see anyone completely convert their process. Most of the time, I see writers completing the cycle with increased understanding and ownership of how they do what they do.

For my part, I've never really tried to change my process. Which means, when I tell people that I try to pre-plot, I'm kind of lying. I mean, I have tried - but I immediately give up, as it gives me that hamsters-scratching-at-the-inside-of-my-skull feeling.

I don't think I need to say it isn't a pleasant one.

Some writers whose methods are more like mine - the pantsers or the misters or the gardeners, or whatever analogy you prefer - say that it's more fun to discover the story as they write. I'm not sure I agree. It makes for angsty, difficult writing days, more often than not. There's a thrill when something falls into place, yes, but "fun" isn't really the right descriptor.

What it is, though, is fulfilling.

There's this whole debate about being happy versus living a rewarding life. I'm a big fan of pursuing happiness, but I'm also a believer in growth.

I often say that, if I wanted to get rich easily, I'd have become a stockbroker. Don't make that face - I'm good with numbers. It could have happened... But the whole reason I became a writer (which is kind of a long story) is because that was the answer when I asked myself what the most rewarding life would be for me. That's why I bailed on being a research scientist. When I committed to being a writer, I studied how other authors do it, particularly the ones I admire most. I wanted to know how they developed their creativity. I'd been so immersed in science that I felt like I didn't know how to be creative. I didn't so much ask the question writers hear so often - "where do you get your ideas?" - as I asked "HOW do you get your ideas?"

At the same time, I was studying Taoism. Really, I have been most of my life. I read the Tao Te Ching in high school and my honors thesis in college (for my other major, religious studies) compared the Tao Te Ching to a sermon by Meister Eckhart. But, when I made this huge choice to alter my career path and become a writer, I was with a kung fu school that emphasized spiritual and mental growth by channeling the subconscious. Taoism is a very individual philosophy, one that encourages this kind of focus on personal growth.

All of this is a long way of saying that I wanted to develop a writing process that channeled the subconscious.

THAT, more than anything else, is why I don't "decide" much about my stories. Instead I try to create a still space in myself, open a door and allow the story to come in. Some days it works better than others. Some days it doesn't work at all, which is agonizing. Other days the rush of being filled with a story from somewhere outside myself is an ecstasy unlike any other.

So, "fun" is really not the right word at all.

But rewarding? Yes, yes, yes.

Be still, little hamsters.

How an Intuitive Gardener (Okay: Pantser) Creates Conflict & Outer Motivation

I'm lucky to have my crit partner and good friend, Carolyn Crane, visiting me for a few days. This involves much time spent writing, drinking and talking about writing. Perfection!

She's even going to help me plot my next series, which is awesome, because she's WAY better at plotting than I am. As in, she actually *does* it instead of my weirdly organic gardening method of plotting.

By this I'm referring to George R.R. Martin's analogy of how different writers work - either as architects or gardeners, or somewhere in between. I discussed this in detail a while back on Suzanne Johnson's blog. The TL:DR is that some writers like extensive blueprints before they start building the story, while others work more by planting seeds and coaxing along what grows from that.

I am really far down on the gardening end of the scale.

So much so that, when I see a topic like this week's - Development of character outer motivation and outer conflict - a kind of hysterical flutter burrows into my gut. This is akin to asking a gardener what will happen over the summer to keep her flowers from blooming lushly. Sure, I might have ideas - drought, then insect infestations due to drought stress, that sudden hailstorm, maybe a freak early freeze - but I don't know exactly WHAT it will be until I get there.

Yes, this is totally how I write and I know that it's the least helpful craft advice ever. Surely our more architectural Word-Whores will have THINGS to say about plans and scaffolding and so forth.

Meanwhile, here is the gardener's take:

My seeds are my characters. I know pretty much who they are when the story begins and I learn more about them as I write and they reveal themselves to me. Let me spend a moment on that. When I say I "know" who they are, I mean in a visceral way, more of a feeling for the person than anything else. For me, when I think of people I know, they're kind of an amorphous tangle of feeling and impressions for me. I'm not good at remembering faces and I sometimes think this is because I remember how a person *feels* to me on a non-physical level. Does that make sense? This is no doubt a huge part of the Intuitive aspect of myself that feeds into the INTJ.

I plant these seeds into the soil of my story - the general idea of where my characters are going when I enter their lives. I start slowly, watering, fertilizing, waiting for the first shoots of story to push up. Much like with actual gardening, it rarely takes long for trouble to arise. Those early challenges hint of the conflict to come. Which it inevitably does. I never feel like I have to develop the conflict because it rears up as inevitably as aphids, floods and flower-devouring wildlife. The world provides plenty of conflict - it always turns up, whether we want it or not.

Yes - I do go back and tighten my beginnings. Inevitably my major revision time will be spent on the first third of the draft. I move up the inciting event, I amp up the stakes and weave in hints of the conflict I discovered as the story spun out.

If I have any useful advice to offer for this method it's this:

Don't back away from the dark side.

This is really easy to do - in fact, I find myself doing it all the time and having to correct. I think we're programmed, as essentially nice, well-socialized human beings, to back away from the harsher aspects of conflict. We avoid ugly confrontations when possible and turn away from tragedies to poignant to bear. In fiction, we must do exactly the opposite.

Delve into the ugly, the awful, the extreme.

Let your characters suffer. Then intensify and make them suffer more.

Resist the urge to rescue them from the storm. Watch while the hail batters their blossoms into mud-soaked shattered petals, then go out and coax them into life again. The great gift of the gardener, the true miracle, is that ability to bring the destroyed back from the brink and make us all believe in the bloom at the end.