Art is hard #2

[stephbg]

Whist soaking in the bath this evening I thought about my recent first attempt to write fiction to order. I seem to have no trouble churning out lj posts (indeed, some would urge me to restraint) that, while based on reality, often have a certain fictional polish for the sake of personal amusement.



However, when I sat down to write a fictional story I'd been thinking about for a couple of days it was like trying to extract molecules from a great 7 dimensional universe of nothingness. A mere two dimensional blank page had nothing on this.

And yet, later when I started to complain about it in a post, I found I could write at least the precis of the story from memory, and it flowed far more easily and in greater detail than I had expected.

I sense a psychological barrier: when I'm trying to write fiction, I feel the weight of personal responsibility for every word. In contrast, when I write my typical posts I'm writing from memory or just transcribing my inner voice. And that just never stops. Never ever.

So: the test of the theory will become to compose a story in my head (or recall one of the ones I started) and write it from memory. Is that a typical technique? Or am I a special snowflake?



I'd be interested in the opinion of people who write fan or professional fiction, particularly those who teach creative writing. I confess I've not really paid attention to any of the panels dedicated to the subject at Swancon :-)

Comments

[writerjo.livejournal.com]

I wonder if you have a clear idea of your fiction reading audience? Are they anonymous figures or do you see a young man laughing fit to burst on the bus?

I'm not a professional writer of fiction, mind you!

[writerjo.livejournal.com]

And, says she belatedly, I am great inner voice girl as well. I think I set my inner voice to that work rather than picking holes in my esteem quite early on. And it busily describes and reframes incessantly.

I can't think how I write fiction. I think that the analogy of the centipede who could no longer walk is cliched but very useful here.

[writerjo.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't anymore. Forget cliched analogy...

This is rather a sideways way of explaining it, but I can only come at it from that direction.

Martin and Timu are great users of the Huna methods for living. One of these is called 'the Garden' and, of course, it's right through most belief systems. But you make a doorway in your mind and enter into a place that is your garden and discover it. You take problems to it and symbolically solve them.

Timu's garden is very useful to him. One day he was battling with his mental maths and, in despair, I sent him to his room to meditate upon what was happening. I knew he had the maths, but he just couldn't spit it out. In his garden he met a guide who explained that he was being too impatient with himself, handed him a few things for his garden which Tim then put into place to instantaneously grow himself some patience. No more problems with mental maths.

Now, I couldn't make myself a garden at all. I found myself forcibly and self-consiously contructing one. But the other day I employed the technique I bring to fiction and there was the door. The precise feeling is one of trust and excitement about what is going to be in there. I have complete faith that it is waiting there for me. And then I find I want to share it and my best writing is done when I can see the person for whom the story should be told.