A counterintuitive way to write

With the everyday work stuff I’ve always got on my plate, it can be tough to grab time to write. Being a freelancer definitely has drawbacks since I basically have to take everything that comes in the door, or risk losing clients forever. Couple that with the fact that a lot of the work I do is time-sensitive, and it’s not a winning recipe for crafting a fine novel. And we’re not even talking about my musical endeavors here, folks.

The biggest drawback to writing is constantly having to withdraw from the creative process. When you have those excellent (and far too infrequent) days and everything is just flowing to the point that you can barely get it all down, to have to stop because revisions to a design job have just come in the door and the client only has an hour before a meeting at which the revisions are desperately needed, you just have to reluctantly put down your pen, change hats, and carry out their wishes – if you want to keep your client, that is.

So in a nutshell, life always seems to get in the way of my writing. I try to do some every morning when I get up, just to keep things moving forward and the juices flowing, but even that doesn’t always work.

The past week, though, I’ve tried changing things up a bit.

I’m trying out not writing linearly, instead jumping all over the place in my current novel-in-progress. Since I have a pretty good idea of most of the plot – except the climax and how that needs to be handled – I can just write a scene here and another one there. Most of what’s coming out seems to be the character development parts, mostly between my two protagonists as they get to know each other (and I get to know them). There’s no rhyme nor reason to what I’m doing and when I do get back to actually working on the novel as a through plot line again, I may not even use a lot of what I’ve been writing. It may no longer work, be necessary to the story or just not something readers would need to know. The point is I need to know it.

I sometimes use this approach when I find myself written into a corner. I just stop where I am and go on to some other point then begin writing there. I’ve found most of the time that while I’m working at point B, point A’s problems are percolating in the background and eventually sort themselves out.

I suppose the way I’m currently working is helping me get to know my characters (the good ‘uns and the bad ‘uns). It is also helping me try plot ideas on for size, to preflight them, as it were.

The main benefit is that the other demands on my time aren’t holding me back as much as they would be if I were working in a more normal fashion.

Needs must, I suppose.