Got the inspiration. Got paper. Got time.
What do I do?
Sleep.
But only for a few hours.
To be creatively productive � What you need is:-
1. Food (I used a Buy One Get One Free voucher at KFC to eat enough food for two people.)
2. Music or silence (I have four CDs of music which inspires me to write this book and had it playing on my laptop.)
3. Exercise (running tires you out, but walking gets enough blood to the brain to ease your thinking and doesn't tire you out so much.)
4. The ability to think of nothing else but the book. (I haven�t quite got this one yet.)
5. The TOOLS � in my case oodles of paper and pens that work and don�t cramp your fingers. (Check.)
6. A tidy space to work in. (Hmmmm�)
7. Coffee. (Check.)
So it wasn�t ideal but it worked. After eating too much chicken I read my notes on the book while listening to the music I had picked out, to get myself in the mood and the right frame of mind. I had coffee. I stared at the wall. And then I did a little work on the structure of the book and developing some characters that I have ignored until now, and then I started thinking about it and thinking about it, in an amused state as I have spent two years thinking about this and never realised what I realised. I had come up with an idea, but because I have already worked out the story and the universe that it is set it, it was more like a discovery.
So I slept. ? Why does this happen?
I had been tired, since only having five or so hours sleep the night before, and then bored stupid in my job all day. So when I woke up I started working on a script I have been writing for a Christian TV show, called Petal. The good thing about Petal is that I don�t care too much about it, and refuse to � this is because of the problems I have with writing my book �Aris�, it�s too special to me. If I think of Petal as just a little project then I will get it done, but if I try to write it as a work of genius like I am trying to with �Aris� then it will stay in my mind for years. Can�t let this happen.
Isn�t this an interesting diary entry? Yawn.
But I wrote into the small hours of the morning on Petal, and have completed a rough draft of the first episode � 26 and a half minutes of optimistic sadness. I know that what I have written is pure garbage, and even as a first draft it is awful, BUT AT LEAST I HAVE WRITTEN SOMETHING!! Now I can go back and edit it, or even re-write it.
I�m writing about writing. Oh my God.