27. Housekeeping
At
first you are faced with the blank sheet of paper, the
blank screen, the empty notebook. Then you commit yourself to some
project – a poem, a short story, a novel – and it's like
being in a tunnel. You feel you have no choice but to keep on going
until finally you emerge at the far end.
All the time you are in the tunnel, you make notes – on scraps
of paper, perhaps using a software program designed to collect disparate
ideas, or just on page after page of the notebook that never leaves
your side.
Iain Banks writes contemporary novels – sometimes violent, sometimes macabre. He also – as Iain M. Banks – writes science fiction. He says he keeps his ideas in three piles – SF, not SF and in-between.
I recommend, from time to time, finding a few hours – maybe two
or three evenings – to sort through your ideas piles. Perhaps
you should write them out or type them, really
making clear what the central thing was that you wanted to remember
in each case. Maybe you should try to categorise them, like Iain Banks.
You might want to divide them by 'people', 'places' and 'events' –
I know one writer who does.
Once the pressure is off and you are free to breathe easy once more, you'll have a good look at all your notes and decide on your next direction – the next tunnel to explore.
has room to breathe.
