Fandom Snowflake Challenge #8

[axael]

Fandom Snowflake Challenge — January 15th

❄ Challenge #8 on snowflake_challenge.

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Creative Process

Talk about your creative process. :)

There are a handful of ways I can approach this, so I'll just...do a little thing for each type of process my brain immediately called up.


• Idea Process:
  Idea ⇨ Build Something ⇨ Tinker until all the pieces are moving.
  
  I always start with a seed idea, where I get really excited about one small concept. Like everyone has a representation of their magic that orbits their head or parkour dragons or what if the magic system is backed by an eldritch entity. Whatever it is, that's what I wrap my idea around. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get anything functional out of an idea. (One of my notes just says chintacles. Where was I going with this? No clue.) I'll write stub first chapters, sketch an outline, or run through a scene from later in the book in my head, just to kick the tires a bit and see if the whole thing falls apart. Not everything is viable, lol, even if it's awesome.
  
  I write with an eye towards the mechanics of a story, because I'm a tinkerer-type. I build something and then I spend almost as much time editing as I did writing, because I very much tinker with whatever it is. I will start with a foundation of a story or world and try to make sure that all the pieces move and function properly within the whole. And I really do consider a story to be something that NEEDs moving pieces along a timeline. I do a lot of testing and trying and revising and doing something new with new ideas.
  
  
• Drafting process:
  Write Draft Zero ⇨ Make Human Readable ⇨ Get Feedback ⇨ Edit/Redraft ⇨ Go.
  
  So my drafting process is much more concrete. I go in waves. While I'm writing draft zero, I do little revolutions where I'll read a bit from the last session and then keep going, so I'm always editing a bit as I go. that said, draft zero should never see the light of day. I pretty much must have at least one pass after that (preferably with some time between writing and editing) to make the dang thing human-readable. I am very prone to word salad, or writing chunks where I'm the only person who could possibly know what I was trying to say, and I can only catch those if I've stepped back and I'm approaching my work as a reader/editor.
  
  After that, I toss it to the wolves to be savaged. I do this so I can't try and 'get away' with stuff that I know needs to be fixed, lol. My brain does this weird 'it's good enough, right?' even when I know there's issues. Feedback helps push me into trusting my gut and ripping out and replacing whatever needs it. Then I will do the actual edit, sometimes taking out huge chunks and redrafting, when the issue is on the structural level. I...am much less precious about my work than I used to be, lol. Into the bin it goes, if it's not working.
  
  
• Overall, though, honestly? My creative process represents a safe place to dump my extra brain cycles, rather than get anxious about things for no reason. When I have a project or two, I always am just like...calmer? Chiller? Happier? Even if my brain is just meandering through something I will never write, it's still an enjoyable thing for me to have my brain doing.

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