At least half of all writing involves just sitting and staring into space. Letting your brain out to hunt down ideas, bringing them back all warm and bloody between its teeth. - Warren EllisI consider myself a master of sitting and staring into space. I also have graduate training which includes wandering in the woods, vegetating on the veranda and a certificate in morning meditation disguised as sleeping in. Ideas come to me in all of these and many other places, however, I have yet to sink my metaphorical fangs into a single one of them. No, my process is more welcoming. I tend to nurture a new idea, giving it a proverbial saucer of milk.
I don't like to take notes unless the idea comes to me as I drift off at night. All writers abhor the thought of waking in the morning with no chance of recalling what the Pulitzer idea was they had the night before. But unless I am about to commune with Morpheus, I prefer to wander a bit, perhaps take a walk or at least pace about a snow bound house and let a new idea percolate and flourish.
Some new ideas are just scenes that may be part of a story yet undiscovered. All I really need is some time to lock the key pieces into memory where it can await the rest of the story from which it has prematurely erupted. There are times when a day or two later, I check my mental, paper or cyber notes to find what I have is not a scene from a story but, in fact, a blog post. Something like this one today.
Pondering Warren Ellis' rapine writing habits, I wonder if I might add a touch of the carnivore to my sitting and staring routine. Gives a whole new perspective to the practice of vegetating. Perhaps the tone and tenor is different when one ravages an idea.
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photo credit: archives
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