Like any writer, I was asked, “How did you find your story. I don’t have any stories.” I think the last statement is false. Some years ago, I became a registered hypnotherapist and from a small office in a doctor’s building I saw clients for seven years. Visualization is helpful and powerful. I would often hear, “I can’t visualize.” “Really,” I would answer. “Ok, try this. Visualize an umbrella.” Go ahead.
Is it open or closed?
We all have stories. We are stories. Are the stories always exciting? Nope, but then, neither are all novels, no matter how hard the author tries to keep the tension alive. There is a flow to a life same as to a good novel. Lives are informed by choices. So are novels. What keeps folks from starting a story is just that, the beginning. Consider your life as a story. Your parents gave you the story prompt, you were born. Did you know the path the story would take then? Do you now know the end? Nope.
Sometimes the story prompt brings with it the whole cloth, beginning, middle, and end. I think that’s probably rare. More often, we get just the beginning. So how do I get the rest of the story? By writing it down. The act of writing is a command. If patient and persistent, it will open a creative door, a magical door, behind which are an infinity of choices and characters. In truth, one of my greatest pleasures as a writer is reading the story as it comes through me.
Years ago as a songwriter, I learned to appreciate the flow of creative ideation. A melody would show up, making its presence known through my fingers onto the keys of the piano. Was I thinking, I’ll just push down on that note along with that one and that one and see what happens? No way. I couldn’t think that fast. I just played and let my subconscious do the walking. When a melody that pleased me showed up, I was grateful. I think gratitude is part of the formula. Expectation comes first, then patience, and then discrimination. Ah, there’s the rub.How do I discriminate between a good idea, a fascinating character, and ones that fall into the mediocre club? You didn’t think this was going to be a free lunch did you? Read. Then read some more. People your unconscious with characters, with heroes, and heroines who echo your deepest desires. Once you’ve done that, and maybe you already have in a past life, then begin to write. Start with “What if…?.”
Patience. Might not get a story beginning on the first day. Maybe not on the fourth. But there is no way your subconscious will not bequeath to you an idea filled with enough energy to begin writing, if you don’t take no for an answer.
Nanowrimo, the acronym for national novel writing month, will begin in a week or so. My first novel, Return, The Sun God’s Heir trilogy, Book 1 will come out January 18th, 2017. Next week, I’ll tell how Nanowrimo jump started my writing and how it can do the same for you.
