(image from FlickR Commons)
Todays guest post on the writing process is by'SD Thorpe, whose book'Getting Up is published through Momentum Books.
The writing process. It goes like this. You get up early. You make a cup of tea. You sit down in front of the computer. Turn it on. Do NOT check Facebook, Twitter, email, Tumblr, Instagram or Ebay.
Remember your dreams'write one down to get you started. Think about making it a story. Set the scene, the mood, the place, the time. Put a character into it. Then edit what you have written so far very carefully thinking about every word you have written. A word can take you into another place, a phrase can take you straight to sub-plot. How about that character? What do they look like?' What do they sound like? Where do they come from, who are their family- are they in love? Out of love? Happy, sad, male, female, old, young?
Now you need something to happen. What is your character doing? Mine your own life for storieswhat do you say to people when they say- what's new? What stories do you tell people over dinner? At parties? Think of a great anecdote from your own life and then apply imagination. Add fantastic elements if you like..there are rules of believability but they can be stretched. I wrote an entire novel about a 16 year old male graffiti artist. I am not 16, male or a graffiti artist, but I found I could get into his head pretty easily.
Then magic happens. Suddenly the world you have created takes on a life of its own. I started with a dream I had which featured the image of a kid sitting on the steps of Flinders St Station in Melbourne and the name Roket. He had a pack full of markers and spray cans and was about to go out on graff raid with a crew of kids he hardly knew. But he's 16, so he's probably bored, horny and pissed off. And hungry. So before he meets the boys in the graff crew, he needs to eat. So he goes into MacDonald's of course. There is a girl behind the counter with amazing ultra-marine eyes. She's looking at him, and he wants to act tough and order a Big Mac, but he hasn't got enough money. She's still staring at him. No money and a hard on. Crap. He asks for a Happy Meal. So embarrassing.
When he gets outside, he looks in the bag. She has given him a free Big Mac and an apple turnover. It must be love. That begins a week in his life in which lots of things happen. But you will have to read the book to find out exactly what. Suffice to say there's everything theredeath, love and art.
The ending may well not be clear to you. Don't worry about thatkeep writing, it will come clear eventually. Problems will be met and you will spend your writing time unfurling them, making them the meat of your story. Keep at it, read it before you go to sleep and let your unconscious get to work.
Repeat this process until you are done. Good luck! Now you can check out Facebook.
About the author:
SD Thorpe has fished for barramundi in northern Australia, edited a feminist punk magazine, lived with wild rockers, fallen in love with the wrong men, hitch-hiked to Darwin from Melbourne and worked in radio at the ABC for 20 years.
She married a sculptor with a 16-foot wire dragon on his car, and has a daughter and four step-daughters. She once wrote the words 'legalise graffiti, make me a star' on a wall. Theyre not there anymore.
Find out more about SD Thorpe and the other Momentumites'at:
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Roket is sixteen bored, lonely, horny and pissed off.
His mother is hopeless and his dad is gone. Roket loves graffiti, his mum and McDonalds, and when the girl with the ultramarine eyes gives him a free Big Mac, it must be love.
He joins a graff crew and drops out of school. But rivalries in his new world threaten to be fatal. By the end of the week Roket has been pushed to his limits.
One night it all goes horribly wrong and Roket suddenly finds his reputation and his freedom on the line. Can he prove his innocence, as well as winning the graff battleand the girl?
Getting Up is illustrated with original photographs taken on location.
