The Feeder Project

Allow me to provide an overly simplistic paraphrase of an idea Kenneth Atchity puts forward in A Writer’s Time: Writing is nothing more than a transcript of an argument you have with yourself. You begin any writing project by making a decision. A portion of your mind will reject that decision. This causes the creative tension neccesary to write something down.

 Atchity says that a process precedes even “the decision.”

It’s somewhat dangerous to determine the workflow of the creative mind. That is, of course, if the creative mind only works when inspired. On the other hand, for writers who need their creative mind to work while uninspired, a knowledge of process (or at least a view of the process) is quite helpful.

Dreaming

Most writers say their first exposure to the compulsion to write comes in the form of an image. Atchity calls this “dreaming.” It doesn’t matter whether or not the dreamer is awake or asleep, the dream is the first step in the creative process. A faun carrying an umbrella was what C. S. Lewis “saw” before starting the first book in The Chronicles of Narnia series. I might even stretch the idea of image to include the sound words make when they bump into each other. Loud visions, I call them.

Atchity says, then, the “image coaleces and is spoken aloud.” This is the official beginning of “inspiration.” We can talk more about the “speaking aloud” part and whether or not he meant it literally or figuratively. The importance of this stage should not be understated. I’ve felt the power and satisfaction of a previously unknown and unthought thought as it trips off the tongue as though it had been there forever and rehearsed in meticulous detail. It is most times the ear, rather than the eye, that determines the viability of an idea.

After breathing in the dream and breathing out the idea, the writer must “enlist the will” in some plan to complete that which was started. The writer gets nothing written without the will.

Then comes the “decision to act.”

Doodling

A writer can know they’ve made a decision to act when they begin “doodling.” This stage consists of an “assembly of the elements.” As the elements come together, the piece takes on shape. The shape may not be clear, but the contours can be indentified.

Some elements are scratched during the period of “contraction.” We think to ourselves, “This doesn’t belong here, but over there.” or “That doesn’t belong at all.”

Contraction comes to a natural end. But it’s not the real end. The writer goes on “vacation” and the material percolates during a period of “gestation.”

The process begins again during “revision.”

This is, of course, Atchity’s view of the creative writing process. I’ve seen where two or three steps of the process become combined past recognition. Armed with the knowledge there is a process, however, is great ammunition in the argument with yourself and can keep you sane while enlisting the will to act.