My creativity goes beyond that of a budding author. My initial dive into creativity is in the visual arts--that of fine art photography. I have moved forward in photographic art for over a decade, and the concept of becoming an author grew while I practiced the art of photography. My first photographic journey was in Washington state, but the idea of writing was beginning during that initial exploration of the visual arts. My photographic skills expanded, yet the desire to write became a tandem journey.
Now, more than a decade later, that written art has begun to bloom. I found that I had to do something I never expected--outlining a project in a detailed level that I never approached in my visual art. And that outlining did not come without its problems. I began the structure of a story idea earlier this year, and made some great progress, in my mind. Then a medical issue surfaced that required surgery. I have to admit that the surgery brain after the procedure left me a bit foggy. But as I recovered and my thoughts cleared, I discovered that my initial story idea needed some surgery of its own. So, since mid-summer, I have been reworking the outline of a novel.
I am now at the point of going through the renewed outline, watching for logical road bumps that would hijack the narrative. My outline is not the traditional format of I. A. 1... My style of outlining is a narrative outline that I revisit from time to time and refine my thoughts and ideas.
When this journey started, I read quite a bit of the how to write books and articles. And I learn so much during that path. The hardest lesson I learned, for me, was that a beginning author needed to limit their first novel to less than 80,000 words. Yep, that is what I read--80,000 words. During my time in the university, I never had a problem writing the papers required during my history degrees. In fact, my problem always came from trying to keep my writing under the maximum limits set by my professors. Oh, I learned all the tricks. I would shift from 12 point to 11 point type, I would set margins to 0.9 inch instead of 1 inch, I would make my line spacing 1.9 rather than 2. And I still needed, often, to find ways to narrow my sentences from 15 words to 11 or 12 words. Editing was the only thing that rescued me from getting on the short side of my professors.
Now I face a new hurdle--I need to actually make sure my writing fits within the limits of a number of words. Thankfully, I did discover that that 80,000 words was not a firm limit. I learned the limit is more in a range of 80,000-100,000 words. Finally, a little wiggle room for my tendency to rattle on in my writing.
I find that my writing still depends on its co-traveler--the visual arts. As I write, I see the scenes lay out before my words. Sunrises and sunsets, mountains rising above the plains, seas reaching out the the horizon, rivers cascading sown to the waterfalls and rushing to those seas. To see my characters, I think I will be posting photographs of people, most likely strangers, that will represent my protagonist, antagonist, romantic interest, and confidant. With a glance, I will recognize my point of view character for the scene.
And now you can see how I can easily reach length limits set before me. I will wrap it up here. Just understand that my written word and my visual arts are completely linked, and forever will be, in my journey for my arts.
M. Alden Phillips
#AmWriting #writerslife #writingprocess #mAldenPhillips
#creativitymatters #selfdiscovery #artisticjourney
#plotting #characterdevelopment #worldbuilding
See also https://www.facebook.com/myMAPWrites/
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