Thinking Aloud

Thinking Aloud….

Disclaimer: this is not a short story or like any of the other types of writing on this blog – (until now!). Instead it is a reflection on the content of the blog itself. So far we have had a fairly rapid and varied outpouring - without much pause for reflection and very little explanation for the uninitiated- the casual blog browser.

It seems like a good time to think aloud about what ‘jannieswrite’ is …to take stock of where we are and maybe consider where we are going …or would like to go with our writing.

Where we are: well we are writing! And that’s a big deal for those of us who were procrastinating and talking about writing –but not actually writing anything. I am mainly thinking of my self; this blog has helped me to just get on and write. Ideas are being bounced around; collaborations are happening -and short stories and poetry are the result. Of course there is more to it; there are obviously lots of ‘things’ happening on lots of different levels.

The perennial question is: where do the ideas for stories come from?   

This is often a stumbling block. It is something that can be agonised over, endlessly.  I would say that our approach is to slightly side step this daunting question by asking, instead, what can we do to get writing, to start the ball rolling, as it were.

It is a question of approach. The analogy I like is the example of the legendary centipede: if you ask him how does he manage the complicated business of walking and suggest he performs some sort of fancy footwork, like the foxtrot; then the results will be disastrous! A performance anxiety! But, if you simply ask him to start walking then no problem – he just needs a direction.

Our direction comes from a number of approaches. I will not explore them all here, but I would like to mention my personal favourite. It may sound a bit basic but it really works if your aim is simply to write something, to get the ball rolling.

The idea is to generate a number of characters and a number of situations or settings. These are all on separate pieces of paper. Then there is a draw to pick out characters and situations to write about. The results should be random. You can not write about the character that you came up with in the first instance. If this happens then you simply choose again. You may end up with some odd combinations; brilliant – that’s the whole idea; the stranger the combinations the better! That’s just the starting point, where you go with it is entirely up to you. You might end up ditching the obvious premise, or even changing aspects of the combination to suit an over the top idea – that’s fine, it’s up to you. But the main thing is that you will have started the process of writing!

A number of the stories in this blog were written this way. I’ll just mention quickly the one I wrote. A Nuns Story: the combination was a Nun and a car boot sale!

To be or not to be continued…