I'm sure many of us as well as the greats have odd or unusual techniques during the process of their writing. What do you do that's weird?
For me, it's having a notebook under the bed with a pencil marking where I am at the page, so I know where the empty space is. This is because I often get ideas while trying to go to sleep, and it is dark in the room. As I mull over my ideas, a spark of inspiration, a tidbit of dialogue, or perhaps a scenario to set the stage is secreted from my mind. Then I reach for the notebook and write, my arm draped over the mattress, pressing, veins in my arm and head becoming pressurized, before I flop back in relief. It is worse when I am turned the other way, as my laziness tells me not to turn all the way around. Sometimes, I sit up and write in the darkness, because relatively longer bits need to be written. I wonder what my brother, lying on top of the bunk bed, thinks as I scratch away. But he never says anything. I wonder if my letters are too close together, or if the writing is slanting too much downwards, or if it will be legible when I wake up in the morning, because it often takes me a while of scrutinizing before I understand what I've written. And, despite my mind being fuzzy at the time, I remind myself to elaborate, because a few words when read in a clear state of mind are not enough to remind me of the profundity of, say, "snow pigeon" while lucid, a lesson I learned after failing to unlock its secrets after I had created it. Alas, my longing still has not abated.
For me, it's having a notebook under the bed with a pencil marking where I am at the page, so I know where the empty space is. This is because I often get ideas while trying to go to sleep, and it is dark in the room. As I mull over my ideas, a spark of inspiration, a tidbit of dialogue, or perhaps a scenario to set the stage is secreted from my mind. Then I reach for the notebook and write, my arm draped over the mattress, pressing, veins in my arm and head becoming pressurized, before I flop back in relief. It is worse when I am turned the other way, as my laziness tells me not to turn all the way around. Sometimes, I sit up and write in the darkness, because relatively longer bits need to be written. I wonder what my brother, lying on top of the bunk bed, thinks as I scratch away. But he never says anything. I wonder if my letters are too close together, or if the writing is slanting too much downwards, or if it will be legible when I wake up in the morning, because it often takes me a while of scrutinizing before I understand what I've written. And, despite my mind being fuzzy at the time, I remind myself to elaborate, because a few words when read in a clear state of mind are not enough to remind me of the profundity of, say, "snow pigeon" while lucid, a lesson I learned after failing to unlock its secrets after I had created it. Alas, my longing still has not abated.
