It’s a beautiful warm spring day. You pack up a lovely picnic basket filled with gourmet ice cream and your finest bottle of wine. You hop into the car, turn on some tunes, put the sunroof down, and then… sit in your driveway.
You don’t have the slightest idea where you’re going.
You haven’t taken the first step: identifying your destination. What park will you go to? Or the second step: figuring out how to get there. What roads will you take? Will you encounter traffic? How long a ride will it be and will your ice cream melt along the way.
If you haven’t figured it out yet and are just wondering why I’m yammering on about parks and ice cream (although that does sound delightful right now), I’m using this as a big delicious metaphor for writing your book.
There is an ongoing battle between the Outliners and the Seat of the Pants-ters, or rather those who like their writing to be “organic” and natural. “I just like to let the creativity flow out of me,” they say. Now, don’t get me wrong. I frequently refer to myself as a “stressed out hippie” so I’m a huge fan of all things hemp. I love going with the flow and being natural… but not when it comes to my writing.
If you can sit down at the computer with the spark of an idea and stand up 3 weeks (or months, or years) later with a coherent manuscript, than I raise a glass and salute you.
Huzzah!
If I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m writing about, I will be sitting in my metaphorical driveway (that’s the computer) with ice cream melting in my back seat (that’s my brilliant idea).
Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of time for being natural and organic and flowy… it’s called brainstorming. You can do this for the writing stage as well. It just needs to be in smaller, more manageable chunks that fit into the rest of your structure.
Sit down in front of your computer, sprawl out on your living room floor (if you have a dog, take plenty of pictures as you go through the process. Your pooch will undoubtedly walk across it as some point), sit down at the kitchen table or jot notes down while floating in your pool. Whatever works for you in terms of getting your creativity flowing, do it. (I’ll make some suggestions regarding that in a future post).
Once you’ve brainstormed and gotten everything down on index cards, computer files, cocktail napkins (I won’t judge), it’s time to organize. This is your outline. This is what gives you power. This is what takes you from staring at your steering wheel to cruising on the open road with the park in view. An outline isn’t meant to cripple your creativity or force you into a box. Why would it? You design it in the first place, and if it needs to be updated along the way… change it! That’s what white-out, erasers, and the Backspace key are for.
It may seem counter intuitive, but I promise you, outlines are freeing. Structure can actually be fun. Imagine knowing exactly what you are going to write the next day and having 23 or so hours for your brain to percolate and ideas to come zooming in. Imagine allowing your subconscious to work for you while you sleep, and waking up in the morning with sheer brilliance spilling out of your head, eagerly awaiting for you to sit down at the computer and let your genius flow.
The next time you are thinking about flying by the seat of your pants and forgoing the outline, ask yourself how difficult it will be to clean melted ice cream off your back seats.
If you’d like some help with the writing process, shoot me an email at sheryl@sherylgreenspeaks.com and let’s figure out how to work together.
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