I have never been one for brainstorming—just sitting down and pouring out ideas and random thoughts and then looking back to see what interesting connections my brain made. I don’t know why I haven’t done more of this in my writing life. I guess it doesn’t feel natural to me. It was never part of my writing process.
Not to say I have not done unconscious brainstorming. All writers do, because our brains never stop chewing over the details of the story we are working on. Once, while working on a novel, I struggled to explain why a character was acting the way she was. Suddenly, I said, “Well, of course, it’s because she’s his daughter.” Of course, she hadn’t been his daughter until that very second—or had she? Had my brain always known that, and it had only just then come to the surface? Looking back at the WIP, certainly all the hints and details were there to support her “new” parentage.
So I do appreciate the value of brainstorming, even though it is not something I find I can do well on my own. While I do not brainstorm alone, I love to brainstorm in a group or with another writer. My own ideas usually come at a slower pace, but when I have someone else to toss ideas at me willy-nilly my mind leaps to connect all the ideas. New ideas spring to my brain much faster than when I try to brainstorm on my own, and the conflation of two seemingly unconnectable ideas is a challenge I love to conquer.
The way the brain works is absolutely amazing. It fits seemingly random ideas and data together and forms flashes of brilliance, ideas that never seemed possible. I am currently reading Isaac Asimov’s short story Sucker Bait, where they have people called Mnemonics who are trained from childhood to remember everything, to gather any and all data they come across, with the idea that the human brain can and will make connections between data when computers will not–because no sane person would ever ask the computer to pair those particular pieces of data. This is what brainstorming does.
We did a brainstorming exercise in Jonathan Maberry’s Advanced Novel class last week, and my brain hurt afterward. Stretching my mind, breaking out of my comfort zones by thinking up ideas for genres I don’t usually write, and integrating numerous ideas from my fellow workshoppers exhilarated and exhausted me.
Of course, turning on the creativity spigot in class inevitably means my brain will be in overdrive my whole way home. I can’t just turn it off, and my 50-minute drive lends itself to a lot of thinking. This is why I continue to take this Advanced Novel class after all these years – the people stir my creativity, push me to go farther, higher, to be better than I was when I walked in the door.
It’s useful to know that brainstorming works for me in a collaborative setting. I get a thrill, a physical high, from bandying ideas about with people. It can be a tool I use when I need to break writer’s block.
And even better, fellow Author Chronicler Nancy Keim Comley and I are toying with the idea of writing a novel based on one of the ideas we brainstormed in class. We’re at the very start of the idea, and it may come to nothing, or may need to wait until other projects we’re working on are completed, but the energy generated by the brainstorming session will carry me through many hours of work—whether collaborative or alone.
Some people swear by brainstorming – how does it fit into your writing process?
The Fear of Writing Badly
I have heard many writers say that part of writer’s block may be the subconscious fear of writing poorly. Of turning out dreck. And this is also the reason some people never start writing in the first place—if it’s not going to come out perfectly the first time, it’s too much work.
I can honestly say I have never been plagued by this particular writing demon (which is rather shocking given the plethora of anxieties I DO have). My key to freedom is twofold:
1) I cannot help but write poorly.
2) Anything I write can be fixed.
Number one is important because nothing we write will ever be perfect. There are some days the writing flows, but then there are the days when every word is a struggle and what comes out is utter blech. It is unavoidable that you will write poorly sometimes. Worrying about it is rather like worrying that the sun might come up in the morning. It’s going to happen no matter what you do.
And that’s okay.
Did you hear me? It’s okay to write crap. We all do it. And why is it okay? Because of statement number two: Anything I write can be fixed.
I am learning and growing as a writer all the time, but there are still things I need to work on. There are still facets of the writing craft I don’t fully understand. And much of my poor writing comes from these gaps in my continuing education. I make mistakes I don’t know I’m making, or even mistakes I know I am making but do not know how to fix.
Sometimes I learn what I need to know and can fix the poor writing myself. More often I need crit partners or editors to point out to me just what went wrong with the writing. By the time I have finished taking all of the feedback from my readers, crit partners, and editors and put it into practice, a wonderful thing occurs: My poor writing improves! And the more I work—the more I learn—the more it improves!
So don’t let fear of writing poorly hold you back. Write. Write well, write poorly, but just write. Because once the words are on the page, even the worst writing can be fixed. But if the words stay in your head, you can’t improve them. You can’t learn from them. You can’t transcend them.
Don’t fear bad writing—embrace it as a necessary step toward excellence.
Bad writing is never a failure—unless you don’t learn from it.