My Writing Process
How do I write? Where? What's my process? I want to share it with you!
Right now, it's 10:21PM on Tuesday. I've taken a shower and am sitting up in bed. I prefer working at desks, but my room is too small. My lights are on and I'm listening to the "Calm Meditation Music" station on Pandora.
I usually listen to music while I write, but it has to be instrumental. If it has words, I can't help but sing along in my mind which means I'm thinking about the lyrics and not what I'm putting down on the paper. Though, I don't use paper. I'm writing this on my phone. I write the most on my iPad, then my computer, and the least on my phone. My iPad's almost out of charge and my computer is at work. Thus, I'm writing on my phone.
Where do ideas come from?
Inspiration comes from small observations throughout my day. If I'm lucky, I'll think of a few titles. I start with a post title and think about the story I want to tell. What am I gifting the reader that he or she didn't have before? That's half.
The other part is execution, the actual writing and editing. Each post takes me 20-30 minutes to flush out and an additional half hour to edit. What do I cut out? I try to make my writing as simple as possible. I love this design quote: "Good design is finding a solution to a problem. Great design is finding the simplest solution to the same problem." You don't need fancy vocabulary to tell a good story. If you want to save your reader time, edit your writing to the essence, the "simplest solution." Then you know you've said what you wanted in the most effective way possible.
Location
I do the majority of my writing from only a few places: coffee shops, tea shops, or a favorite restaurant (tonight is a rare exception). I feel comfortable in these surroundings as the busyness of others makes for a stimulating white noise that puts my mind "in the moment".
Why am I sharing this with you? I just want to share. I want to let you inside my brain and show you how I work. In some odd way, spilling my guts on the Internet helps me learn about myself, but maybe it will help you too. For what it's worth, this is how I write.