Writing process
I have one wall in my home with a big blank space. Why? I suck at outlines. I’ve always sucked at them and hated doing them. I used to write an essay then do the outline off of it. It made for more work in the beginning, but it was the only way I could do an outline.
My writing process follows the same route. When I’m to the point where I should write an outline, I write a ROUGH draft. I can’t even call it a zero draft cause it isn’t that fully formed. I hand write, in my terrible, chicken scratch handwriting, on blank pieces of paper a first rough draft. I like the blank paper because as things occur to me farther into the story I can go back and scribble on the sides of previous pages or if it’s something big I can write it on a new sheet and draw arrows to insert it where it needs to go. Yes, we’re talking that rough. Once I get that done, I tape it up on the wall. It’s kinda fun, but also useful to be able to step back and look at it literally all scratched out like that. I should probably take a picture of the next one I do.
While it’s on the wall I can add things or rearrange things just by moving around sheets of paper or drawing arrows. It’s messy but it works for me. When I finally have it mostly formed, I start writing it on the computer. As I finish a section that’s been handwritten, I take down that paper and watch as the wall of paper slowly disappears.
I’m sure some would describe it as basically throwing up your story all over your wall/paper. But, hey, it works for me. Whatever gets the story written.
