(Spoiler: The title is facetious.)

It has been an … interesting week. I’ve been engaged in a job-hunt, which resulted in one great interview on Friday and one to come next week; I attended an ice cream social at J’s daughter’s school with her mama and some friends; I removed and replaced the front wheel on my motorcycle; and I went through and studied six ranks (of ten) in martial arts with the home study DVDs and manual I have, in hopeful preparation of returning to class Monday evening and kicking a– um, of doing much better for the review. (I’ve also been practicing my run-on sentences – can you tell?)

…you’ll note the lack of writing and worldbuilding progress in there. At least I’ve stayed on track with the blog – my plan is a post every other day. This may change in the near future to be a more post-on-certain-weekdays sort of schedule, but for now, every other day is a great goal. Oh, and yes, there will be short stories / flash fiction posted on some of those days. Some old, some new, all under 1500 words or so.

Which leads me, in a meandering path, to today’s topic: methodology. With all this talk about writing, how do I… well… write?

I’ve noticed two particular trends among writers. The first is to write intellectually: have an idea, explore the idea, expand it, write an outline, fix the obvious plot flaws, and then begin writing the first draft. The second is to write emotionally: have an idea, then grab its hand and run screaming out the door with it waving behind you like a captured flag. Intellectual writing, or organized writing, is a very measured and controlled process; emotional writing, or haphazard writing, is a very intuitive and spontaneous process that involves very little pre-planning and precious little deliberate direction.

Me, I’m a haphazard writer. I am capable of doing things in a more organized fashion, but I’ve never felt like an architect – I’m more of a channel. If I hit something good, it feels like the story is flowing through me, rather than being born and shaped in me. I’m just the frantically-typing pair of hands and proof-reading pair of eyes that lets the story be seen and heard by other folks. When I run with a concept and it doesn’t work, I find myself wondering what I had to be smoking to think I could manage to make something out of what turned out to be nothing.

But when it does work, the angels are caterwauling and the goblins are jigging as all the pieces fall into place, galvanized by some unseen and miraculous force that knows how everything works out in the end– and I sit, breathless and amazed, at what just poured into and out of me.

(And then, well, there’s editing, and fixing plot holes, and revising, and all of the oh-so-fun revision process– but that happens no matter how you write.)

So, my fellow storytellers – how do you write?

Related posts:

1. You’re My Inspiration
2. It’s been a little crazy ’round here.
3. Are You In There? Really?