IMAGINE IT SO
Saturday, August 21, 2021
Imagine ~ you’ve just written something great.
That feels great, satisfying, and causes you to stand taller and braver, sporting the wide grin of accomplishment and pride – yes, imagine it so …
But that’s never finger-snap simple.
It’s not impossible, and I expect every writer who takes their writing seriously develops a process, the one that works for them.
Everything has a beginning, even though the first words might later end up in the middle or near the end or later be replaced entirely by different words that hit the page before, during, or after the polishing phase.
How to start?
Or rather, how do I start?
Well, where do I start?
Someone asked me recently how I get started on any particular column – wondering what represents the trigger or mechanics that take me from spark to a fully formed idea, and later into a completed column?
For starters, I write a lot of one sentence ‘starters’ and keep them in ‘the basket,’ that is my document file name where I park my starters, each new one posted at the bottom of what sometimes grows to a long page, until the day when I have a serious scroll through each one to purge, polish and procrastinate some more.
Sometimes that single sentence will blossom into an entire column within minutes because writing that first sentence was like opening a vein, and then everything flowed out.
But that is the exception.
Most mornings, I sit at my writing table – I’ve been up a few minutes, toileted, weighed, checked blood pressure, pulled on sweats and made my bed. My little writing room sits midway between bed and bathroom – so that first sentence deposited on a page is likely written when I’m barely awake.
Next, I’ll scroll up and down to see if there is anything more fully developed and suitable for a column in a few days which suits my mood, which strikes me as ready enough. The challenge then is to keep writing from that single sentence prompt or to make a selection from my inventory of ‘started things,’ which becomes my to-be-published column within a few days.
With that selection done, I spend a few minutes polishing my ‘tomorrow column’ which sits there, resting in draft form; it’s been marinating overnight, the one I was relatively comfortable with before I fell into bed last night … which adds credence to my rationale of having DRAFT work sitting midway between bathroom scale and pillow, keyboard next to blood pressure machine.
Once my ‘tomorrow draft’ is polished with any obviously required revisions punched out, I head out for a morning walk.
My morning walk then has several purposes – to put fresh air in my lungs, work my body so the bathroom scale can report a friendly number upon my return, and to mull that tomorrow-draft.
And to soak in whatever I might see while walking, which invariably triggers something I’ll write down when I get back. Sometimes, out of fear of forgetting that thought/idea trigger, I pull out my phone and send myself a text. That works well to capture something, provided, of course, that I remember to check my text messages when I get home – otherwise, it might be days until I see that text with a few words; sometimes that triggers action, often nothing at all.
Then some polishing the ‘tomorrow column,’ time for breakfast and newspapers, coffee and work – and the final ‘tomorrow column’ will be reviewed again in the evening before loading it on the website and putting into the email format to send to readers the following day.
In the past, when I’ve explained this process to anyone who asks, I get a wide range of responses – some of the amazement, some of the bewilderment; and some think my entire process is a waste of time.
I don’t expect anyone to understand; I only provide this explanation to answer queries of those who want to know how I do it. I realize that question is more about how I motivate myself to do it instead of its mechanics.
Most people don’t understand because it is a series of habits I’ve got myself into: “It’s what I do early every morning.”
It is – nothing more, nothing less, habits that work for me.
It’s nearly 18 ½ years now, writing this daily column and pushing it out to a willing list of readers who want to get it. They get what I want to write, they get to appreciate it or not, delete it or not – I have no cause I’m advocating or desire to persuade anyone to think the way I do. It’s a stream of my consciousness with some management controls, so it takes up only a little bit of my day …
Sometimes I dash off an entire column before I pull in the morning papers. Sometimes I wrestle for hours – it all depends on my time available, the interest in the particular piece, and mood.
The unasked question is often, “Why do it?”
The answer is something I’ve wrestled with periodically – and I have several answers, not one of which is that I dislike it in any way because that alone would be a stupid reason to continue.
I write because I love to write. I write Musings because I am curious what is inside me, about what might come out on any particular issue or subject, or in response to some prompt in the world, something on the news, something someone said or did – that’s my springboard for writing. It’s a small portion of my day, but it has become an important one. It starts my day. I’ve learned that many readers start their day with things like Musings, publications they’ve agreed to have pushed their way.
I’m grateful that they read, thankful that some respond with a note or a call to tell me they care, or to comment on something I wrote. I feel some frustration that the people I care most to hear from never comment or react. I wish they would – maybe that is part of the motivation too. I’m not sure how or what, but there is an answer buried in me somewhere.
And, I can’t afford therapy …