GUEST FEATURE IWACA
10 | IWACA
NAVIGATING THE CREATIVE
MAELSTROM
By Sebastian Flynn
H
ave you ever started a story and turned a mental
corridor to find no more story there. Or worse, the road seems to split in to a mental spaghetti junction. If you're anything like me, you will have. A few stories may blossom with no effort, with a miriam of ideas just popping in to place like Lego. While others, seem
to be nothing but square pegs and round holes. I myself have experienced both, with an unhealthy divergence to the latter. Almost everyone does. You are not alone.
I’ve put together a few tips on getting the most from your work before you start. Whether you are a pantser or a planer, these tips may help, so you might want to keep reading.
Let me begin by qualifying that I am a "writer".
Why would I use speech marks when I write this?
That's a great question.
The answer is of course, in my
may blossom with no effort, with a Miriam of ideas just popping in to place like Lego. While others, seem to be nothing but square pegs and round holes. I myself have experienced both, with an unhealthy divergence to the latter. Almost everyone does. You are not alone.
I’ve put together a few tips on getting the most from your work before you start. Whether you are a pantser or a planer, these tips may help, so you might want to keep reading.
Let me begin by qualifying that I am a "writer".
The answer is of course, in my mind, I am a writer. Although I have had very little of my work published, and of that which is open to the masses is floating around cyber space, writing is a huge part of what makes me, me.
Again, you might ask, so why do you say you are a writer then?
Let me tell you why.
I call myself a writer because of how my mind works. Every day, I study the world around me and find myself attaching significance to my observations. New ideas will form from the simplest of actions, sparking stories that play out in my mind. Thousands I’ll turn over and examine on a daily basis, testing their strengths and weaknesses, and it is on this subject I am writing now. The creative maelstrom. That tempest of new ideas every writer must live with. A powerful tool to be sure, but a bane nonetheless.
How do we know which new thought is worthy of attention and which to leave in obscurity?