If I had to use one word to describe my writing process, gossamer would be the word. It evokes all the things that my process is: a magical web that’s so thin to be almost invisible, fragile yet strong, gorgeous, shining, mystical, illusive, fluttery and seductive are all aspects of what that one word conjures. Well, for me, anyway. I think part of it’s because I always associate gossamer with wings, and writing, when it’s good, is like flying.
I write first thing every morning. If anything happens to throw me off course, so that I can’t get to my work right away, I probably won’t get to it at all that day. So that part of the process is very fragile. I’ve learned to live with it. Mornings are my golden time and sometimes I can spin them out until afternoon, happily active in my imaginary world. Other times, I’m finished in an hour.
I never really know how long the writing mood will last, but I’ve learned to accept the subtle signs that I’m done for the day. After all, it’s not like I’m writing under anyone’s deadline but my own, so why mess with the intuitive part of myself that insists the next scene will wait until tomorrow? It’s a very loud yet silent voice, that intuitive me. It uses my body to signal quitting time by draining me of all writing juice and putting me in a much more worldly, practical place.
There are times when I’ve been dragged too soon from my writing by one commitment or another, and that’s akin to chopping off a wing. Or both. But when the writing moment ends naturally, my wings just kind of fold up and disappear into my shoulder blades. I can continue to write after this happens, but it isn’t the same. I’m not flying anymore, I’m floundering. The work I do after this is usually uninspired and needs to be revised again anyway.
Other, more practical writers, those that are rolling their eyes right now, might find this connection to my writing self tenuous at best. What I have found, though, is that if I am true to it, and give my mornings to it faithfully, my writing self will almost always show up–unless the creative part of me is clamoring to fill the well and goes on strike until I take myself on an artist’s date or a nice long vacation or something.