Comments on: I am god

By: Th.

Th. — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 04:12:40 +0000

I’ve been surprised (both pleasantly and unpleasantly) at which conscious writing turns out to be excellent and which subconscious writing turns out to be crap.

I’m a firm believer that you can’t really tell what’s good and what ain’t during the actual writing. Both from my experience and as a teacher of writing.

By: alphabitch

alphabitch — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 23:12:49 +0000

“(I always had to write the paper first and backward engineer the outline; it was a pain.)”

Ha! I was so glad when I got old enough that teachers didn’t ask for an outline anymore. 🙂

By: MoJo

MoJo — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:37:47 +0000

I do tons of conscious writing when I’m writing backstory. I just start and see where it goes, following a logical progression of, say conversation. That’s my foundation. I guess it could be classified as outlining, but a lot of things fall into place by themselves doing it that way.

That stuff’ll probably end up getting edited out later though…..

I’ve been surprised (both pleasantly and unpleasantly) at which conscious writing turns out to be excellent and which subconscious writing turns out to be crap.

By: Th.

Th. — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:26:02 +0000

Sometimes you have to force them to act to get it started again.

That stuff’ll probably end up getting edited out later though…..

By: Ann Marie

Ann Marie — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:58:58 +0000

Here is my personal theory. We can only remember / retrieve anything that goes on in our subconscious minds because it makes some kind of sense to our conscious minds. Our CM needs to have some vocabulary or framework to process or repeat the stuff the subconscious lets loose. It follows, then, that this is one reason outlining or note taking or collaging or whatever preparatory method is helpful: you're setting up the system of gutters and rain barrels, say, that direct those subconscious droplets into some meaningful context. But then we also choose (conscious mind?) to make these things meaningful, to see relevance, to make connections to the current work, and to sit down at the desk and write.