As I keep working on the Write 1 Sub 1 Monthly Challenge, I find myself thinking about how I come to write the stories I do. For all of you who write stories, do you find yourself writing to a particular market - a magazine or an ezine with a first line prompt or a particular theme, etc. - or do you write whatever comes to mind and then find a market for it? Or both?
I tend to do both, but this year I'm trying to let the stories grow and emerge more organically. Don't get me wrong - I love a good prompt or theme and I will continue to utilize those in my writing, especially as jump-starts to the process. It's just that I was starting to feel like my work was becoming rote, like I was on an assembly line churning out stories like widgets. I missed the joy of when snippets of ideas and lines of dialogue appeared in my head. I didn't want to conjure characters; I wanted to meet and greet them.
The nice thing is that there's no right way or wrong way; there's only what works. And, since that can vary from person to person, from project to project, it's like a life-long exercise in creativity and passion. Now, that's my kind of exercise.
Working on a deadline has the possibility of turning into a mill like experience but often times, for me, that is the movtivation. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sally! I hear you about deadlines and prompts being motivation - it works that way for me a lot of the time. After awhile, it just felt like that was all I was doing, you know? I missed the spontaneity.
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