Acknowledging being a writer
The idea of writing a novel has followed me as long as I can remember. It began with poems, a school novella, and my needs for writing down my life experiences from time to time. I was taught how to read and write before I went to school by my grandfather on my mother´s side.
I have realized now that my true inheritance from my ancestors is found in my ability to write. It took me quite some time to understand that I was born to be a writer. I have been told so on numerous occasions, but I didn´t dare to believe it is true.
Along came an irresistible sentence that quickly became a page. This fall I finally decided to write the novel that I have been wanting to write for so many years. With the decision came also the acknowledgment of how much work I need to do before there is a first draft to present to the world.
So I took a deep dive into the world of the writer. Is is at times a path of loneliness, at other times it involves the people closest to me for constructive criticism. But mostly it feels like dancing to the rhythms of music in the words.
It is like having an inner voice telling you this is the right thing to do, like taming a wild horse, like running across the field in the heat of the moment. It has become both a want and a need for me to express myself through the written word.
The world of words has always fascinated me. The feeling of reading a good book that is impossible to lie down before the last period. And then the hunt resumes, for the next intriguing adventure. At the moment, I´m reading “Mercedes Man” by Stephen King, and soon I will need yet another book.
I have a decent home library that I use often, but I also go to our local public library to find inspiring new writers to read. I read daily for 2-3 hours and write for 3-5 hours. It is like having a full-time job, except that I don´t get paid just yet.
Yes, I´m a passionate writer. I´m more addicted to writing than I would have believed just a few months ago. And this blog gets the credit straight after the main credit that goes to my family, my friends, and my readers.
I´m very proud of having readers. It is a privilege to write for you. It makes me want to do better than last time, every time I write something. It makes me able to write more every day. It makes me bow my head in equal parts of inner terror and respectful awe.
The inner terror is the fear of the white paper, the writer´s block. I have conquered it at the present moment, but I´m also prepared to do something serious about it should it arrive.
Building a writer´s daily habit
Blogging demands consistence, will-power, and determination, especially when excitement becomes routine. But writing on this blog twice a week has given me the ability to keep on writing even on a truly bad day. It makes me able to hold onto a pretty strict discipline on a daily basis.
My writing habit is under construction, but now I have the basics settled. I sit in my creative den after the morning coffee and the morning routine of the little wise, old dog. I write for about two hours before opening any email or researching for my novel on the Internet.
I have no TV in my creative den for it is too big a distraction. I listen to a lot of different music and I´m building playlists corresponding to my mood and the purpose of writing. I´m surrounded by a world of creativity here as the pictures will show you later.
It is too cold at my usual writing desk. And I have yet to re-arrange my witch´s den so it is possible to write parts of a novel in there. I´m not in a hurry, though, I take the necessary time to create the frames for writing a novel under almost perfect circumstances.
Our house used to be a bakery, a kiosk, and a pizzeria. So it is a big house, and therefore, we only put on the central heating in strategic places. We have the perfect frames for being creative and happy. And I´m grateful to the core of my heart.
Right now, I´m writing here in my creative den. With the view to our yard and the changing seasons. It is gray November outside, silent rain whispers about adventures ahead, and the wind is gaining momentum.
There is a storm on the way, I can feel it with every inch of my body, mind and soul. I can also feel that my novel is about the gray zones between good and evil. As it should be since I´m writing a psychological thriller.
From time to time, I will experiment here on this blog with the writing techniques I´m learning to handle. To foreshadow is a difficult task, but it is fun like dialog, rising action, and the aftermath after climax.
It feels as if the time stands still for a brief moment before really bad weather is coming. We have been promised a week filled with rain and wind. This fall I´m inspired by the quick, yet subtle changes in the weather.
It is like it is foreshadowing a harsh winter outside. It sets the mood for some serious writing. And serious it is to create a psychological thriller. One thing is the demands of the genre. Another big issue is its effect on the readers. To thrill is my aim.
Without mentioning my past with a single word, I can from the bottom of my heart say brutally honest that I know what thrill in real life can be like.
Research in progress
I have begun working with dialog. It is a devilish game, it sounds so easy, but I can promise you it is not. There is only one way forward, keep on an get it done. Then read it aloud or let someone else read it to you. And rewrite rewrite, rewrite.
I must sound real, but not too real. One hundred percent reality is not the aim of a psychological thriller. But close enough is still hard to attain. It is fun, though, for here the characters really can be challenged.
I hate physical violence, but I dread psychic violence. The way that manipulating people have the ability to crawl under your skin is scary, is intolerable, is scarring for life. It should be treated with much more seriousness than it is today, for it has many victims in its trail.
To write about what scares me the most seems like a fitting way to let go of some leftover baggage from memory lane. And it is time to discuss how we treat each other and ourselves in this modern world where only the jungle law seems to rule when it comes to human behavior.
So I research the psychological aspects of being a human being in a modern world full of stress, fake news and human evil on a daily basis. How does all this affect us in the long run? How do we learn to cope with new sub-diagnoses on everything from a pimple to serious mental conditions?
Are there people who are born evil, or it is a combination of genes and the environment? And how do we deal with them if we run into them in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and in the wrong way? How do we handle ourselves being flawed by nature?
Big questions, yes, but real enough. Because there are people out there who are bad for us. Yet we search for them and get thrilled to the bone when we meet them. They are searchers, too, but it is in a much more subtle way. And then, you´re attached to them like a trophy.
Bittersweet memories as inspiration, no one is mentioned, no one is forgotten. Indeed, there is a storm on the way. And it´s going to be the roller coaster ride of my life to write it out. Gradually, my characters are lining up in the near future. They are more insisting by now, but I can wait.
There is still plenty of time to get prepared for the drafting process. Coming through the first half part of my research period, I´m beginning to notice the techniques in the works of others and the flaws, too. I now see more clearly what awaits me.
But I´m not scared anymore. I know I can do it well if I prepare myself properly and follow a guideline or two on the way. It is a journey already set in motion by myself.
From idea to novel
The idea consist of four simple sentences, written like the snowflake method where you build up a novel from a basic sentence that evolves into a paragraph, and then one day ends up in a novel. It is a page and numerous notes by now.
When I finish my research I believe that I will have about 60,000 words in my notes. Most of them handwritten. So by now, I´m able to write that and much more. I will try to write as much as possible in hand, for it is by far preferable to writing on a laptop.
It forces me to think more than twice about my word choice, my aim with the novel, and the amount of thrill that I want to apply. I study snappy dialog as much as possible, for in a psychological thriller there must be quite a lot of action for it to balance the psychological effects of the thrills.
I have the raw character sketch almost ready for further exploration soon. The characters need to grow forth themselves, so I wait patiently with any writing about them. I wait until I can feel them with all my senses. Then I will take one by one and let them get to know each other throughout the novel.
I have parts of the setting in place, but everything is yet open for discussion. Mood and atmosphere are developing in my mind these gray November days, place and time will be my next goal to study, and then I need to look a potential conflicts to use on my novel.
My process is very intense right now, for I´m both learning and experimenting at the same time. There are many new ideas and techniques to get to know, but I stick with my genre and choose with great care what to use as learning materials.
I can really recommend “How to write a damn good thriller” by James N. Frey. And, of course, “On Writing” by Stephen King. And I would also like to recommend watching “The Silence of the Lambs” or “Cape Fear”.
In my novel, however, there will not be physical violence. There is enough of that better written elsewhere, and I find the psychological aspect of violence more interesting than fistfights and dirty tricks with weapons. With me, the weapon is only a threat, but threatening enough.
Have a creative and meaningful week, dear readers. Next Monday is about free-writing, so I son´t know until that time what the theme for the blog post will be. I need a writing day where I can experiment and dance to the music of the words without having to consider a pre-scheduled content.
It will probably be some sort of stream of consciousness. I return to it quite often, for I like the way it always sets my writing truly free. No strings attached, except for the love of writing.
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