"these are the promises i can keep, to live like i must and ride with the dust in my face"-cardigans
So, 
writerighton had a workshop today called "How do you get writing?" Which was interesting, because that isn't something I've ever really stopped to think about before. So I sat down, typed up a response, and decided that it was something I should cross post to my actual journal. Therefore!
How Do You Get Writing?
How do I get writing? I'll start with my idea - whether it's a basic plot concept or a character or even just a single scene. Then I'll sit down for a few weeks and immerse myself in any and all research I can find relating to that topic. For example, the first time I wrote a high fantasy novel I spent almost a month researching world building and perfecting my own world. When I started the novel I'm on now, I spent two and a half months hidden in the religion section of my campus library, reading anything and everything they had. The Christian Bible, the Qu'ran, the Biblical apocrypha, the Summa Theologica, encyclopedias of myriad mythologies. Whatever I could get my hands on.
This research might never make it into my novel, but it helps me to get a kind of feel for the direction(s) it might take. It gives me a wide base of information and background from which I can draw during the actual writing process.
As I'm doing all my research, I'll keep a notebook or a binder stuffed full of scene ideas, character background, timelines, and things like that. I'll also have a clear space on my bedroom or living room wall on which I tape up a note card outline (note cards here because I'll frequently go back and add scenes as I find something interesting in my research). Once I have at least the basis of a workable outline, I start to consider actually beginning writing.
The novel will bounce around in my head for another little while - anywhere from two or three days to two or three months. I'll keep researching and outlining and preparing during that time, but I won't actually begin writing until I can't help myself. Once it's all but impossible for me to not be writing, I'll sit myself down at my desk or at a library or wherever and pound out a first draft. This normally takes between two to six months, during which point I write every day because I don't have a choice. If I'm not writing, I get jittery and distracted until I can find more time to sit down with my notebook and work out my next scene. I usually get out between a thousand and three thousand words a day and rarely deal with things like writer's block, which is awesome. However, it also means that once I start a new novel I'm out of commission for life for the next few months until I get that first draft out.
It's a method that doesn't work for everyone - indeed, I've never found anyone else who does things this way, but it's always worked for me. Of all the novels I've written, I've only started one of them that did not make it to at least a complete first draft. And that was the one that I wrote for a NaNo and didn't have the opportunity to follow my usual method.
writerighton had a workshop today called "How do you get writing?" Which was interesting, because that isn't something I've ever really stopped to think about before. So I sat down, typed up a response, and decided that it was something I should cross post to my actual journal. Therefore!
How Do You Get Writing?
How do I get writing? I'll start with my idea - whether it's a basic plot concept or a character or even just a single scene. Then I'll sit down for a few weeks and immerse myself in any and all research I can find relating to that topic. For example, the first time I wrote a high fantasy novel I spent almost a month researching world building and perfecting my own world. When I started the novel I'm on now, I spent two and a half months hidden in the religion section of my campus library, reading anything and everything they had. The Christian Bible, the Qu'ran, the Biblical apocrypha, the Summa Theologica, encyclopedias of myriad mythologies. Whatever I could get my hands on.
This research might never make it into my novel, but it helps me to get a kind of feel for the direction(s) it might take. It gives me a wide base of information and background from which I can draw during the actual writing process.
As I'm doing all my research, I'll keep a notebook or a binder stuffed full of scene ideas, character background, timelines, and things like that. I'll also have a clear space on my bedroom or living room wall on which I tape up a note card outline (note cards here because I'll frequently go back and add scenes as I find something interesting in my research). Once I have at least the basis of a workable outline, I start to consider actually beginning writing.
The novel will bounce around in my head for another little while - anywhere from two or three days to two or three months. I'll keep researching and outlining and preparing during that time, but I won't actually begin writing until I can't help myself. Once it's all but impossible for me to not be writing, I'll sit myself down at my desk or at a library or wherever and pound out a first draft. This normally takes between two to six months, during which point I write every day because I don't have a choice. If I'm not writing, I get jittery and distracted until I can find more time to sit down with my notebook and work out my next scene. I usually get out between a thousand and three thousand words a day and rarely deal with things like writer's block, which is awesome. However, it also means that once I start a new novel I'm out of commission for life for the next few months until I get that first draft out.
It's a method that doesn't work for everyone - indeed, I've never found anyone else who does things this way, but it's always worked for me. Of all the novels I've written, I've only started one of them that did not make it to at least a complete first draft. And that was the one that I wrote for a NaNo and didn't have the opportunity to follow my usual method.