Day 28
30 mins research + 30 mins editing + 15 mins planning
+ 1 hr planned writing
Jacqui talks today about moving away from our habitual frame of reference and being more observant. It’s important to have a vision for the work which goes beyond plot. Personally, I would call this my “theme” or “argument”; what is this story trying to say? I think a story needs a reason to exist, even if it’s not spelled out. That’s just my preference.
But beyond our story having a vision, Jacqui also talks about a writer’s powers of observation. She asks how often we write from observation, versus memory and imagination? This is an arresting question. At first I thought that I don’t often write from observation, because my stories are not about “everyday” life. Then, thinking about it, I realise that I often listen to what strangers are talking about, and reserve phrases for future use.
For instance, walking past two women on the street:
“I went to that dark place, that place where I don’t like muesli.”
And even though my stories are set in realities unlike my own, I need to think about the details of the character navigating their world. So, I think I am naturally quite observant, especially of speech patterns and mannerisms.
Where I think Jacqui has a piece of advice I could really take on board is to take some time to stop thinking about our own problems, and imagining those of other people instead. I am certainly fallible to believing that the more I think about my issues, the better I will tackle them. Actually it just tends to make them larger.
If I spent a lot of the time that I worry about writing, actually writing, then my work would be further on and I would have less to worry about.
Exercise
- Reflect on what “nothing being lost” on us means for you personally. What will you do to ‘ensure that this is a permanent change’?
- Option 1: 1,000 words: carry on
or
- Option 2: 1,000 words (I added 30 mins editing + 15 minutes planning): use one of four prompts
a) research a character or theme and bring it into today’s writing
or
b) sit outside for 30 mins, spending half the time observing, the other half taking notes
My response
- For me “nothing being lost” is about appreciating the present moment more, rather than worrying about the past or future. It sounds trite, but it is true and very difficult because of its simplicity. I do not, however, know how to ‘ensure that this is a permanent change’, as she suggests!
- I chose to go with the prompt and decided to research a character or theme. I lack an understanding of what this story is about, so I hope this will give me more weight. In balance to the sitting outside exercise, I decided to do this for 30 mins.
- I find it so much easier to write once I have something to hook the scene on. Recently I’ve felt as if I’ve been writing “into the void”, just putting words on paper — getting “black on white”, ha — but without knowing why. This has been an increasing struggle as I left the high of the clueless beginning behind, and started to need to know what it was about. Writing cluelessly for 30 days is not a good use of my time, it turns out. And although there is the daily exercise of planning each scene, I don’t know what the plan for the story is, and that’s just not how I like to write a story.
all course content copyright Jacqui Lofthouse thewritingcoach.co.uk