Category: writing fiction

A Method to My Creative Practice

method to creative practice

Hello all! Welcome back to this blog.

Let’s talk about writing… Let’s talk about my writing method.

These are the first three steps of the creative method that I’m trying to structure at the present moment:

1. Learn

2. Capture

3. Practice

If you read last week’s post, you may be aware of my attempt to organize my own creative method, and the path of better structuring the knowledge about myself, and how it impacts my own creative method.

This is a recurrent theme, to which I have dedicated much time, and that I want to share, as I’m weaving my way into its construction.

I believe we have the need to construct our own method, to which we will be able to turn to, whatever our current state of mind at any given moment. I feel this is essential to maintain a satisfactory creative existence.

I figure that to nurture one’s creative life we have to be able to see the nuances of the practice.

Contemplate a sunset, as he drops below the ocean, may induce me to go create something. But, many times, is the image of a, not so beautiful, ant that struggles with a crumb, that makes me think of moving impossible objects. Or, looking at a broken sea shell, and realising that its mother-pearl does not lose the creamish-pink beauty just because it has jagged edges.

So, why do we feel we need this sort of trigger to create something? And what do we do when he does not manifest itself at present? What art works do we create when the world pressures us in brutal, and hard to reconcile, ways if we need the peace to inspire us to create?

Not every one of us are prone to social intervention art creations, or aim to build art that will change the world. Sometimes, escapist art it’s the best contribution to society one can give, to the thousands that need the boost of a helpful piece.

To facilitate the trigger that leads to creative construction is part of finding our own personal method, which allows us to work on our art, without depending of the mystical and elusive inspiration.

To wait for inspiration to start creating is not a long term sustainable creative method.

But, to be aware of what surrounds us, in accord to what we thing about such experiences, is the fountain from where we drink to create, and part of our own personal method.

To think in showing up to a page and write something, is to know that, if inspiration is pushing us to ‘create! quick! don’t think, act!’ the process seems easy.

It appears to be what we have heard of what an artist should be: struck by a genius idea, and the rushed frenzy of putting the idea into the work of art, whichever form of choice… a page, a canvas, an uninterrupted role of paper, a digital file.

But, how many times does this happen? And how do we build a regular work practice when all we do is create when we are inspired?

I believe that it’s in moments of quietude, those which are spent contemplating outside things, while inferring what’s happening inside us, that feed the creative act.

To see something differently, and regularly build and adding to its meaning, means that we need uninterrupted time for the creator with its thoughts, and a multitude of experiences that help him recombine his ideas.

It’s not the velocity that provides consistent work. It is the stable progress, discovering in little increments, and showing up to organize which are our ideas, about the artistic means we have chosen.

It’s in the nuances, in which we build ourselves that we may, and should, come up with the system that helps us lead a creative life.

It’s in the experienced differences, in ways of being and creating, that need to be respected when we establish our own creative method.

Not forgetting that, to learn from other people’s experiences is essential. After all, we don’t know what we don’t know, so we need to go and look for it. To gather ideas and knowledge is essential to any person, more if we speak of someone which desires to do creative work.

To organize our own experiences, with the intent to base a system with which we are intimate, and that guides us, is essential to the creative practice. We need to know what we are doing next, without too much pause or friction.

To know ourselves, without prejudices or artifice of exaggerated productivity, help us acknowledge when we work better, when we have the means, and when our experience is inspiration to something more objective.

And from this point on?

To learn through a pletora of sources.

To capture what we know, and what we continue learning, in ways that nurture the creative process.

And always practicing our art.

My best method, or that which I recognise as the beginning of my creative process, has three phases: Learn; Capture Ideas; Practice.

Which always happen simultaneously. This is because, to capture ideas which seem interesting to explore later is a constant process to be kept. To have a place, or several, where to note things down, is part of my resources always carried with me. And, to write it, practicing the art, is an essential output.

1. Learn

Learn the relevant techniques. Learn what others, before and contemporary to us, have added to the themes. Learn the basic details, and the more advanced knowledge, as is possible. To learn is the Creative Input that we need.

To ponder: Sources. Quality of our Sources. Diversity of experiences. Research work. Thinking process. Iterating processes. Hyper-focus on what we are captivated by (no guilt).

About exposing ourselves to different experiences: what we experience embeds itself in who we are, and what we do. To broaden our activities, meet people, go to spaces and experience other artistic manifestations… we end up finding out that we really love to collect theatre brochures, photograph art pieces, rock climbing, volunteering, going to music concerts, pottery workshops… whatever it is that makes us happy and ready to use that information/inspiration.

All materials, or experiences that teach us something, are valuable.

2. Capture

At the same time, learning implies to have the means to capture what we learn, and build the personal iterations about the different matters.

External: I have experimented almost everything that I’ve came across, on the process of Capture of relevant information, and the ideas that were brought from those experiments. Even on my most difficult moments, I have tried to keep my records and even adapted this process, when my health required a more thorough process of capture, than the one I was accustomed to.

Daily calendars, online calendars, diary, dedicated notebooks to each project, photographs, photocopies, commonplace books, A5/A6/A7 cards, text and calculation files, organisational apps, right until creative challenges that asked for a continuous writing, painting or collaging, for a set number os days, a precise and regular practice… I have experimented all that sparks my interest and I find it most enlightening of our personal tastes.

For now, I have a small notebook for Capture all the information. And this is a entryway which works for me. I prefer to have this capture notebook, accompanied by the notes app on my mobile, adding the pertinent photographs to my photo library. I am also a frequent user of Canva, in order to organise all this input of information.

From this Capture notebook, I then copy the information to the correct project notebook. If its an idea for a book, I’ll put it in the project notebook. If it’s a reference to add to an article , I’ll put it on the first drafts notebook… and so on.

All these project notebooks have started to be organised in a particular way but, about this, I’ll write in some other article, if you have interest on the subject (let me know in the comments).

Internal: What I Capture might generate an idea. I’ll write it down in the capture notebook, and add a photo or other relevant material, to remind myself from where the idea came from. For example, all that comes to me when I read a book is noted on the margins and copied to the Capture notebook or dedicated Project notebook, as soon as possible.

I’ll let my internal monologues be influenced by what I see… if it’s a painting, and it reminds me of a character, or a possible personality trace, I’ll capture that connection and, later, I’ll transcribe it to my project notebook.

3. Practice

Every first draft, whichever project, has a dedicated space. A physical or virtual space that does not obey to any revision work. I’ll write what I want, in a first draft so messy as he requires, and leave it on the waiting cue.

Some books take years until I figure out what a better draft requires.

Writing blog posts and Substack newsletters take less time than other forms of fiction writing, but some of these never see the publication date arrive, even after days on end of revisions. “One simply is not fit to be seen.” (‘Persuasion’ by Jane Austen)

Other blog posts, end up supplying the main idea to other article, even if totally different from the initial iteration.

To put something in the world, the Creative Output, is the main goal of the previous actions: learn and capture.

Memorize to future use

In light of this, I cannot help but think that it is important to consider memory as essential to it all. This creative method is, simultaneously, a group of strategies that help me keep the information that crosses my path, so I don’t forget, to repeat it until I memorize what I need, in order to recombine ideas, and use them in my writings.

This is a process that helps me remember what’s important, and the most relevant details from those experiences. If I did not make the effort to write down, and remember, the positive experiences, soon only the negatives would have space.

Life is made of too many memories, which we unintentionally forget, or that we need to arquive somewhere in a less accessible spot. But, to practice our arts we need memories, and the ability do memorize, and not just those which are more emotional impactful, but also the ones less dramatic.

To have processes in place to maintain constructive memories, that I wish to keep, has been determinant to my memory, and helped narrowing the uncertainty of some memories, even if it does not save me from the normal cognitive biases, that are certain and assist us all.

So, these are the first steps of my creative method: Learn. Capture. Practice.

Not the solo ones of this method, of course. But they are the infrastructure on which I build upon. Part of growing my own garden.

I hope this glimpse of the entry point on my creative practice is of some use to you. I’ll share other strategies and methods in due time.

∞

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Bye and Keep Writing! ✍

Know Thy Human

know thy human

Hello all! Welcome back to this blog.

Know thy Human.

Not ourselves… of course, it kind of means know thyself and not just know others but…

Why? Why is it important to know human minds and not just the gist of how a human mind works? Why is it useful to understand the different ways each one of us has to perceive, and act upon something, in our lives?

To write is to convey in a page how individuals think and interact with the happenings in their lives. It’s to respect and bring to life their differences. It’s to extrapolate, using what we know to be basics human behaviour and possible mindsets.

It is important to pay great attention to this because it’s how we get to write believable characters, how we are able to imagine coherent plots, how we create a good story, how we make the people in those stories freaking interesting.

And not just for the hero’s, and the lukewarm characters in there, but for the villains also.

If something feels not feasible, hard to imagine, or simply not in accord with what we know to be possible, maybe this is the reason why: We do not know Our Human of that story very well.

To understand human minds is hard, and usually, we get to imagine every other person in light of what we think we know about them, and in light of what we believe to be true about ourselves. We see others as we are and that gives us hell.

To write fiction, and non-fiction alike, we need to know people directly. To experience others perceptions. To live through situations that make us question why some people are, and act the way they do.

To make all that research into how an inexistent, or ficcional, being could come to be in this book of ours.

To have some accurate grasp on the well studied disciplines that provide scientific knowledge is adamant.

To study philosophy, psychology, and sociology, can give us the tools to understand people, and use that knowledge in our fictional constructs.

It’s not that we can’t write good characters without some measure of understanding in these areas. After all, writers tend to be good observants of others practicalities. We can do it, but it will be harder, and with a more drastic learning curve while doing it.

Maybe you do have a natural tendency to understand other people’s motives and actions. Maybe your passion has been to be a History devoted pupil, and it had given you the much needed foundations for your fictional writings.

Maybe you have lived through way too much hard/different/instructional or just plain shitty stuff, and have a first hand knowledge of the hard parts of life.

… Even then, to keep hungry for understanding it all a little bit better is what keeps most of us glued to this writing practice. I know I’m here in part to make reason out of no way in hell this is happening that is thrown at me every single day.

But what if we don’t like what we find about Ourselves?

And, let’s face it, most of us wouldn’t appreciate the scrutiny to begin with.

What if we find too much pain in our History, too much nonsense in our Sociology, too much of everything in Psychology and Philosophy? Too many misconceptions?

Now it’s the time that you’ll say: that is a given not an if.

Looking closely at something means that, we will find all the dark periods, the wrong choices, the massive unreasonable and unfair truths. We will take stock of diseases, influences, beginnings and mistakes, and a lack of answers for why it happened (and keeps happening still).

We will see unwilling relations, power moves and collective mind actions. Erasing all common sense and good judgement.

We will recognise logic but not heart.

… Like in the racial theories spread in the wake of the slavery business. Or the worldly religions distributing death, fuelling up conquests of power and riches. Or how pandemics took hold of large territories, killing people even at hands of the common cold. Sexuality being squashed under the heavy boots of the exploiters of others… there are lots of major trends like these throughout the centuries of human evolution.

Most of us are kind of trying to deal with some iteration, or other of this, by writing about the big issues. Stuff that happens to us, in our lifetime, but could easily be found in other ages.

But being the big issues, we need to keep them as small as possible. As unaffected, and manageable, by focusing on the details, instead of the impossible task of tackling the huge issue.

Learning from the Sciences always means you have to take it with a grain of salt. Nothing is infallible and trial and error has always been the way to go.

So we will never find definitive answers in science. We will find possibilities and scientific studies that work at some extent, and that may, or may not, be proof of some theory devised but another human being.

But even without absolute, one hundred percent, certainty it’s better to be aware of all that, and make it work in our Know Thy Human practice. Information can be power.

In my opinion, Science keeps being  better than to believe in the belief.

If we believe it’s because it’s not true. Truth is a matter of being, not a belief… I read this a few days ago.. not recollecting where it was. But it is an interesting concept and was duly noted.

To understand a tiny bit of the human mind (and use it wisely) is to accept this difficulty in taking in the Big Picture, and find alternative, corroborating stories in it. Find its truth while writing about it… or imagine it.

At least, this is how I like to go about it. Collect info, try to give them some rhyme and reason, and then make the best out of shitty situations. Learning and Creating and trying never to forget how important it is to Know Thy (My) Human.

So… how’s that going for you?

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Bye and Keep writing! ✍🏼

we are what we believe we are & to be of service

we are

Hello all! Welcome back to this blog.

Wondering about what means to be a writer seems to be part of this thing that I have chosen to be.

We choose and we become that which we have chosen. Even if it seems a dream. Even if it doesn’t seems feasible. Even if it’s so damn hard to do.

But the Truth is, if we choose to do it, an put in the actions to have it, we are it.

This argument is part of a few books. Works about the writing craft, books by those who struggled in the pursuit of this work, even philosophical, and religious spokespersons believe firmly in this idea: We are what we believe ourselves to be.

It took me a while to understand it.

After all, we are told that, it is through outside validation of our work, through making money with it, that we believe ourselves to be validated in our choices.

But should it be? Are we what we believe we are?

Is it not by doing the work itself that we become professionals? Is it not by writing that we become writers?

Is it not that by writing, I become a writer? That I am what I believe myself to be? 

This is a rationalisation that I find myself drawn to, for the good and the bad parts of it.

Good because we feel that we are something, and feel proud by being it, getting ourselves more motivated to pursue it.

It’s kind of fulfilling our dream without actually having the solid proofs to back it up, but building the structural base as we go along.

Bad because, if we are not willing to put the work in, we end up convincing ourselves that we have already achieved it, we are already writers, and we want what is due to us… without actually becoming the thing that we want to be. Without actually Writing and learn to write.

Quoting from the already mentioned poet  Jacqueline Suskin:

“What it means to be a writer in this day and age?”

Jacqueline answers this for herself with the following words:

“My job is to be in service as a writer, and my specific outlet is this kind of accessibility, this thing that I can write for anyone. I can write a poem for any type of person.” – in The Poem Store: A Life Changer | Jacqueline Suskin | TEDxSouthPasadenaHigh 

It’s not without great effort that we try to find our own answer to this question. Specially if we consider all the writing-for-hire and AI-knock-off’s out there.

I know I keep searching for my particular answers.

What does it mean to me to be of service? What does it mean to be a writer? What can I consider Writing?

I do write loads of blog posts. Are they, in due legitimacy, Writing? – is one of my most asked questions.

This reminded me of…

I have served. I will be of service.

in John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum

… and it’s kind of like that, isn’t it?!

We have served by writing. We will continue to be of service by writing. We might find other venues that support our writing efforts. We might teach, perform, add other means to one’s end. But we will be contributing through Writing.

Each one of us have to find our own answer to what means to be of service to mankind.

What means to be of service to people? What means to contribute to this big, huge, world of ours?

And how our own experience will provide something for others to discover their own questions and answer them.

For me, it’s being here, writing my way through books, articles, poems, short-stories, videos, notes, journalling and all that brings this activity alive.

For me, it’s to provide entertainment, to pass inspiration along, to connect and feel connected, to share my journey and hope it will be useful for other’s pursuit.

To be of service is to serve our passions. So that, through them, we may be here for someone else. We may be here, and let them know that they are not alone.

We believe so we can serve, and that is what has some chance to make a difference in this weird world. 

***

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Bye and Keep writing! ✍🏼

***

References: 

Write in Awe

write in awe

Hello all! Welcome back to this blog.

A few years ago I took a short online training called Every Day is a Poem, with Jacqueline Suskin (on Commune).

You may say ‘I don’t write poetry‘ or ‘why poetry matters when writing fiction?‘. Or not. If you write, you have a sense of musicality, or lack thereof, about the words you use.

But let me tell you, that first lesson of Every Day is a Poem, truly stuck with me.

It was called ‘Be in Awe of Everything‘. And it was a wake-up call to recognise all the awe inspiring things that surround us.

An invitation to find reverence in daily life, as an inspiration to express ourselves through poetry.

meaning of awe

I have found this lesson very useful not just for poetry practice but for all types of writings. The subject of this lesson never seemed to slip my mind entirely.

And not just because I frequently catch myself wandering through Aweness on the most unexpected situations (i’m the weird adult that, in a social gathering, keeps staring at the ceiling because she saw something interesting there), but because I find it a sound advice in any creative writing practice.

A small example of awe: check the huge thistle on the church roof? It’s half the size of the artichoke statue! It is blurry because it was very windy…

weed
São Bartolomeu do Beato Parochial Church

It was not supposed to be there, after all the church is remodelled and in full use, but Life always find it’s way around obstacles, doesn’t she?!

[Yes, Life is a She, a Mother, a Creator of all sorts… just saying.]

Awe is what I aim for when I write for this blog. To inspire through awe, and get it on the page, and through to you.

I find that when we write with feeling, from the depts of our convictions, from the heart, we access to a part of ourselves that can be kind of lyrical, and truthful, and inspirational to ourselves and others.

When we let feelings flow through words, and scenes, and characters, we get a noticeable emotional experience. A powerful one, if done in awe.

It’s not about telling people that these characters are in love, it’s showing them what their love looks like, in a recognisable and inspiringly way. It’s to produce emotional imagery that readers can relate with.

To convey powerful feelings like these, we need to access to that part of ourselves that sees the awe in it. That recognises the feeling. That knows what Love may look like. That can envision the world shattering power of feelings.

And that’s what this process is all about: write to inspire, to enlighten, to soothe, to support, to help, to just be there when the words are needed.

The same goes for fiction, and for non-fiction also. Both aim to bring something more to the lives of the one’s who read the words.

Fiction moves through emotion and subtext.

Non-fiction lives in the realm of possibilities and inspiration.

To construct we need to have understanding of what is, and non-fiction serves this purpose. Its job is to convey awe in dealing with more down to earth subjects.

But to be in awe, in such a cynical world, and to write in awe are not simple tasks.

Sometimes, it takes all we have just to get through a few sentences. And other times, it just doesn’t come to us at all.

We keep getting to that point when we feel empty, bare of all awe induced mindset, uninspired.

Letting go of what is, the pain, the daily stress, the pressure, to find that feeling of reverential respect, of dazzle, can be a hard task.

And exterior inspiration can only take us so far.

To find within ourselves our will to create is to find awe in what is, and in what we are, and in what we desire to put forth in this world.

It’s to find our rituals, our creative processes, all the things that nurture an awe mindset. And to find this is adamant to be well, feel well, and create awe inspiring work, whatever that work might be.

***

Here’s a suggestions of a creative writing exercise for your practice: Awe Narrative

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Bye and Keep writing! ✍🏼

***

References: 

Beautiful Imagery and our best work

images

Hello all! Welcome back to this blog.

Imagination and Imagery are intimately connected. It’s the power of combining images, transforming them into our particular reality, and even going beyond that.

Writing is constructing images in our heads and in our readers minds.

While building a story we recur to different strategies to visualise how characters, locations, and objects, will appear to our readers.

I do believe that, all that we can see in our minds will translate into a page in the most effective way we can imagine, if we just put the work behind it.

I also believe that usually this happens in ways we can’t perceive objectively. It’s kind of a shadow work that occurs inside our minds, fuelled by all the collected inspirations.

The act of describing what we are envisioning, letting what we absorb come through, will make reading a lively experience.

This means building ideas about how the elements will be, and master its materialisation on the page. Whatever the story, in whichever genre we fancy.

How we find imaginative inspiration?

Some of us, writers and imagery builders of sorts, have a fondness for reading and imagine things in our own way.

Sometimes, this ability gets us to have a book turned into a movie just because the imagery used was totally wrong from what we had envisioned.

Others, find it useful to look at correlated art works and give our imagination a hand at picturing worlds, creatures and even human faces.

There are a few theories about this brain ability of ours, categorising people into types of learners, just by figuring out our abilities to retain information and, therefore, use it in creative ways, accordingly to our main senses of vision, hearing and touching.

I found that, for me a mix and match of all of these, work in different projects and situations. So I learned to use visual aids, and well as hearing and touching.

In some projects I use music. In others, drawings and pictures. With more, or less, emphasis on each aid, according to what I feel is most needed for me to capture the full experience I need.

Because to learn about these characters, and this world, and these objects and locations, I need to attune myself to their particularities. And this is only possible if I keep my sources of inspiration in an expanded mode. Always looking, always alert, always integrating fun little snippets of information that might seem to be just there for the taking. Just so I have some places from which to draw inspiration from.

Where do I find some inspirational imagery?

Just looking at other people’s rendition of something, a picture, a drawing, a digital art work, a description, a capture of some sort of inspirational material, allows me to let me own imagination guide me into my own world building, with all it entails. Browsing through Pinterest, DeviantArt, a Google search on Images tab, can get me some much needed help on figuring out some writerly things.

How do I use it in my writing process?

I use it for inspiration, to build up my mental muscles on the much needed imagery.

Exposing myself to beautifully composed images, to gruesome battle outcomes, to twirls of abstract imagination, will get me content enough to start thinking about my own creative processes in my stories.

Also, I use it for writing exercises.

To have a prompt, and to build upon that little morsel of imagery is a pleasure, and alleviates me from having to start with the dreaded blank page feeling.

Just like painting uses references, the  writing practice also can, and should, do it. Imagery serves us as guides in this unthreaded wordy land.

Is it beneficial to my writings?

Yes. It is indeed. My imagination needs all the aid she can get. My writing efforts benefit from everything I throw at them. All the little unsuspected efforts we can make to help us write more and better are welcome.

If we find a notebook full of clippings is the way to go, we should try it out; or a mood board hanging on the wall; a Pinterest album full of scary pictures; a reference book on imagery; a subscription to a travel magazine; or any other way of collect those images we will be recurring to intentionally, in order to make our writing process smoother and more inspired.

Standing in the shoulders of giants has its downside?

Do not copy. Do not steal. Do not use without permission. Do not go into that unimaginative, hurtful, dishonourable lane.

Reconnect the dots of all you have learned and add to the work already done. Be inventive, resourceful, creative in your own right. You can do the most beautiful, your own, work. And it will feel good to do so.

Be careful of the difference between gathering inspiration, to work out added value, and the already mentioned problem above.

Gather from all types of different sources and think: I am the sieve through which all comes in, and only a small combined part of it mesh and comes out.

Allow myself to be the changing factor, the added value, the combinatory and creative force behind whatever I create.

Will it be easy?

Is anything worthwhile easy? I don’t think so.

Was any of those drawings easy to make? Any of those books we read? Any of those creative breakthroughs?

Easy and Worthwhile are opposites, aren’t they? 

Having these processes available to tap into, allowing new inspiring imagery and information to come through, working out the effective ways they can serve my writing efforts, trying to be receptive to all inspiring tendrils is part of the fun.

All we can do is allow our minds to translate into our work the images we had envisioned. All we must do is ensure that the reading experience will be the best we can make it. And that all these inspirational processes work out for the best in each page we write.

So that our reader truly gets what we were aiming for: the best story possible. 

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Bye and Keep writing! ✍🏼

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References:

Considerations about Building Worlds

building worlds

Hello all! Welcome back to this blog.

World Building is hard, fun, messy and an inspiring cluster of moments to be had, while writing a story.

To create a full, well developed, verisimilar picture of a new society, in whichever form and size, means we have to be ready to explore.

And we explore by imagining some complex interactions, rules and possibilities of functions and purposes. We explore by asking ourselves ‘What if?‘

World Building is also very fun, and we can have a great time imagining and developing some physical, personal and social landscapes in order to make a certain story work.

Building a new world usually means that we want it to be special and unique.

But sometimes, we have all of these ideas, already seen in other books, series and movies, that makes us doubt if we are indeed writing something new or even good enough. Making us doubt of what we intended to create, and getting us not to put enough time in working out the particulars of that special world.

How to come up with remarkable ideas for our World Building?

Learning about other people’s creative processes might give us a glimpse on how their new ideas came to be. It might help us discovering our own process to invent our own strategies to uncover our imaginative process.

I suggest that you watch the documentary ‘Abstract, the Art of Design’ for a great glimpse of other people’s creative processes.

But, more frequently than not, we see their processes as a confluence of different factors, including their own unique reality and life experiences. And, let’s face it, we can’t replicate that. All we can do is live our own life experiences and use them the best we can.

So, looking to other people’s creative processes teach us an invaluable lesson: Use your beliefs, inner thoughts and fears to create our Story Worlds.

There’s a constant need to look around and analyse how we see the world, how we react in certain situations, what we believe in and how those beliefs have changed over time.

There is great potential here. Not just for the things we would like to advocate in behalf of, while writing our stories, but also looking frankly at our hidden agendas, those thoughts we find uneasy and some of them even shameful.

And then, there is fear.

Fear can be our ultimate telltale sign that we need to work on that through a story. Not as a way to deal with it, even if it could be that, but as a spark of inspiration from which to build upon.

When we are writing Fantasy, being in a dystopian novel for example, we may construct a more believable story if we tap into our own experiences and thoughts.

I guess we all have came into contact some pretty messed up world views, peer pressure, or non-sensical beliefs. We might as well put them under a new light and scrutinise if any of those would fit our story just right.

Building a brand new world is, and cannot be in other way, connected to how we experience the reality we live in.

We may set the action in a far away galaxy, in a totally different body, or even in a totally different existential and corporeal plane, but we all start from the same reality in which we live in.

My father used to say that “all the things that exist are from this world. We cannot invent anything that we hadn’t already seen or experienced in this world.”

I agree with that. We can only reimagine what we have seen or experienced in some way. And all of it came from this world we live in.

We cannot think outside-the-box, if we have no ideia of what exists beyond it’s confinements. For example in sci-fi stories, assuming there could be something existing outside what we know, and having clear notions that there are rules to the functioning of this world in which we live in, we can only extrapolate into how things could be in other worlds.

Initially, we draw inspiration from the knowable in order to build a new world, somehow inventive, by reapplying the old and conveying things in a new format. And then we go deeper into the rabbit whole, if we can. We conjugate different ideas, crisscrossing from distant experiences and knowledges.

It’s not just having some knowledge but learning to recognise it’s potential and integrate it.

We use what we’ve got, specially if it’s a cross between a chihuahua and a fountain pen, or an ugly feeling and an online game, or chicken legs and a house foundations. Any one of these fortuitous connections may give us that idea that will make our story special.

World Building doesn’t mean just physical location. It envolves people, traditions, cultures, belief systems, interactions, associations, objects, daily tasks… all of the things that we experience in our own existences adapted into this new world that we are creating.

Because a martian would never walk like an earthling, would he? Or an addict would never rationalise some random thought in the same way that someone without that particular addiction would.

There are different knowledges to be pursued and other connections to be made between the simplest thing in that particular world. And our job as storytellers is to make those connections if we can.

So on we go into other worlds in order to discover our own.

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Bye and Keep writing! ✍🏼

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Writing a shitty first draft

first draft

Hello all! Welcome back to this blog!

Today, I want to talk about shitty first drafts and what it means to cope with first-draft situations.

Yes, because I’m 15 000 words into one of these myself and I’m fretting about it. And, yes. Because I need to find a way to cope with uncertainty so I figured that, maybe so do you.

Or a zero draft, as I heard Kate Cavanaugh from You Tube channel Kate Cavanaugh Writes call it. [Check it out, it’s a good channel to get me inspired for writing and think about writing themes.]

I keep repeating to myself, almost chanting if I’m being honest, that it’s okay to write a shitty first draft.

That I need to put something on the page.

That it doesn’t matter what I write on that first draft because it will be worked on, improved and thoroughly revised.

That without something on the page I have no chance to improve nothing… because there is nothing to improve upon.

[See? I’m almost making a song lyrics out of this. Just need the right tune]

I keep reminding myself of that chapter of ‘Bird by Bird’ by Anne Lamott…

anne lamott shitty first drafts

At least, I know I keep repeating all of that to myself every time I’m in that phase of the process where I need to produce a first draft. And it’s truly alright to write a shitty first draft.

It’s not my first roundabout on first-draft-land. But it’s always tricky to drive in such a bumpy, too large, full of holes road… and it’s a roundabout, so I am to expect some curves and bad angles and some drivers out of their lanes.

I have done this first draft thing in the long format form for six times now.

I’m counting all of my finished novels, including a published one. But I’m not counting any other form of my writings, which all of them took a first-draft phase, including this article I’m currently writing, and that you are currently reading.

Maybe I should consider these also… and, suddenly, my life is made of first-drafts.

This is my seventh first draft and here I am, in overwhelm-land.

It still gets me every time. Six books in and I don’t feel prepared for this part of the process.

It’s like I keep looking for things that aren’t quite worked out yet to keep myself in the overwhelm state. I look at this first draft and wish I could make it perfect… as it is, and knowing very well that there is no such thing as perfect, I’m sustaining the eyes wide open, rapid breathing pattern and in a constant arrhythmia state, ready to flee or pass out (still haven’t decided which one yet).

But I’m not here to complain. Truly, I am not. I’m here to share that this is hard but that I can, and I will persist. And so will you.

After all, I have done it six times already for my novels and a few hundred times for all of my other writing works, like short-stories, poems, blog posts and any sort of creative texts.

I also know that, this too will pass.

I know I’ll end up moving forward, plowing ahead, or tiptoeing around obstacles. Or finding some mental assurances and some strategies to make myself cope with the first-draft situation.

Sometimes coping means:

  • writing my book plans in really big paper sheets. 
  • constructing cards for my characters.
  • writing every scene in a A5 card and have a visual of the story entirety.
  • even writing one version of it by hand in some lame notebook. 
  • enrol in any challenge that makes me forget the thing in itself and make me show up to the work (I am so doing #the100daychallenge that starts in Feb.22).

I’m even considering using the foolscap method, a Steven Pressfield’s suggestion (watch a quick introduction in his Instagram Reels).

Or any other strategy that I feel can help me cope, in this moment, with the uncertainty of it all.

Something like, remind myself why I’m writing this story. Why I’m involved in it. Why my creative path lead me here. And how I felt with a finished book in my hands (not literally).

And maybe get back to the drawing board. To plan my scenes in some way that helps me do this first-draft.

So, I have options. The only option I don’t have is to quit. And neither do you.

I’ll leave you with another inspirational quote:

writing a novel

Just keep driving!

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Bye and Keep writing! ✍🏼

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References: