Daydream Your Novel
By Kathleen Jones, The Quirky Novelist. Please sign up for free updates at http://eepurl.com/ceSobT
Finally, you manage to find some time in your jam-packed schedule. You wrack your brain, trying to force the words out . . . nothing. Or the words appear, but your writing seems awkward, forced. You try again and again, work harder and harder, only to get the same dismal results. Why? You know what you want to write. So why aren’t you getting anywhere?
Because creative ideas can’t be conjured up through conscious thinking. Creative ideas are products of the unconscious mind, and they float to the surface only when we aren’t “thinking” (in the conventional sense of that word).
But how can a writer gain access to creative ideas locked up in the unconscious mind?
By freeing the mind. By daydreaming.
Begin by taking the pressure off yourself to write. Close your ideas, lay down somewhere quiet (if you’re at home, that is), let your mind wander. Envision the scene you’ve been trying to write, let it unfold on its own, relax and watch it like a movie. Then, while that scene is still fresh in your mind, write it down as you’ve experienced it. Don’t worry about making every word perfect.
As odd as this technique sounds, it helped me to write my first novel. It also made the process of writing easier, smoother, less intimidating, and more fun. And writing a novel should be fun; otherwise, why bother doing it at all?
Visit Kathleen Jones, The Quirky Novelist, online at https://kathleenjones.org/ or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/joneslepidas and sign up for free updates at http://eepurl.com/ceSobT Kathleen’s first novel, Love Is the Punch Line, a midlife romance set in the world of stand-up comedy, is available NOW, in trade paperback and ebook from Amazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/Love-Punch-Line-Kathleen-Jones-ebook/dp/B07BYNX7BM/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1525812415&sr=1-1&keywords=love+is+the+punch+line) and Indigo Books and Music (https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/love-is-the-punch-line/9781945181337-item.html?ikwid=love+is+the+punch+line&ikwsec=Home&ikwidx=0) Visit the Love Is the Punch Line Media Room at https://kathleenjones.org/media-room/
Kathleen Jones, The Quirky Novelist 