Some writers are people like Stephen King and just totally lose themselves in their writing often not knowing how the book will go until they are finished.  I read a line in one of his books, Misery, where the captive writer “fell into the page”.  I love that description because that’s how I read and so I understand it.

He describes in the book Bare Bones, which is essentially a long interview with him, that he really doesn’t know where the story will go and he really does fall into the page.  What a wonderful way to write.  It is little wonder that he is able to be so prolific and write several books a year.The downside is that he says that these bizzare images are just floating around in his head and if he didn’t write them down to get them out he probably would be insane.  There are probably unkind people who would suggest that he already is.  I don’t agree but think that if I was sharing accomodation with him I wouldn’t sleep.

Can you imagine going camping with him and having him tell those wonderful campfire stories?  How many wet sleeping bags would there be in the morning?  Who would get out of their tent in the middle of the night?  Not me.

I read “The Howling” and was so scard by it that I didn’t like walking past the windows at night in my own home.  I kept looking for furry faces looking in.  Took about 6 months to get over that one.

Other writers are like me and write in fits and starts.  I’ll have a burst of creativity and write for hours and then…  It might be weeks or months before I can go back to that one.  Fortunately I can write short articles (300-500 words) on a subject that I have spent 1/2 hour researching in about an hour.  This means that if I need to belt out and article for any reason it will take between 1 1/2 and 2 hours to do that.  That’s a handy skill for the internet and blog posts like this, although this post didn’t need any research.

I’m slow compared to some people but I do like to get the spelling and grammer correct and the fastest writiers don’t seem to care at all.  Often that makes for a difficult to read article.  I could easily find you examples but I don’t want to, they hurt my brain to read.

There are other writers who sit and think, sometimes for weeks, before they begin to write and then often write out the whole work non stop.  They think through the whole plot, all the characters and each scenario in complete detail first.  Some must take notes as the go but not all of them do, they carry the complete work in their heads and then just put it down on paper, the audio tape or the keyboard.

I read a very interesting book which was a collection of letters and notes about the writing process called “Journal of a Novel” written by John Steinbeck while he was writing “East of Eden”.  His way of writing is to sit down in his studio every day for the same amount of time and write.  He often starts with writing a letter to his friend about the previous days writing because he claims it gets him moving.  He says you have to treat writing as a job and go to work every day if you want to get anything done.

In some ways I agree with him.  It is so easy to get distracted by what is going on around you and that will stop you getting things done.  I remember well the time I was studying for my final year at High School which was then called Matriculation or Year 12.  I was doing Mathematics 1 & 2, Physics, Chemistry and English and I really wanted to pass as I was repeating the year having failed dismally (or extremely well depending on how you measure these things) the year before.

I had a set time for study every week night from 6:30PM to midnight.  In my room I could hear the TV going and the laughter from the TV and my family was extremely distracting so I would play the radio at a volume that was sufficient to drown out most of the TV noises.  I was then able to ignore the radio and study.  I only had one thing to ignore rather than the random and intermittent noises from the lounge room.

Incidentally it paid off and I got good enough marks to be accepted into University to study Engineering, but I didn’t.  I got a job instead and became trapped in the honey trap of an income.  I just couldn’t face another three years of study at that time.

One thing I did notice from all of these writers is that none of them seemed to be concerned if there was an audience for what they were writing.  If what you write is of general interest that that might be a good plan but if what you write is of limited interest to the general public you may find difficulty in finding buyers and that, ultimately, is what we all want.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t write it, whatever it is, but not everything that’s written finds a ready market.  There is a market for every thing though, it’s just that some markets are very small and hard to find.

So how do you write?  Fall into the page, pre-plan everything, force yourself to write something every day or intermittently?  Leave a comment and let me know.