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If you will cling to Nature, to the simple in Nature, to the little things that hardly anyone sees, and that can so unexpectedly become big and beyond measuring; if you have this love of inconsiderable things and seek quite simply, as one who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier, more coherent and somehow more conciliatory for you, not in your intellect, perhaps, which lags marveling behind, but in your inmost consciousness, waking and cognizance. You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within yourself the possibility of shaping and forming as a particularly happy and pure way of living; train yourself to it -- but take whatever comes with great trust, and only if it comes out of your own will, out of some need of your inmost being, take it upon yourself and hate nothing. Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters To a Young Poet

Creating a Text – Kate Harrison

john baker, August 27th, 2007. No comments. Filed under blogging, quotations, writing.

What phases are involved in the creation of a text?

Lightbulb/Eureka moment: it might be a title, or a theme, or a character that ‘pops’ up from nowhere or at least, the sub-conscious. Often it’s a combination of different ideas or preoccupations that have been bubbling away in my brain.

Greenhousing: this is where I try to move from the vague idea into something that works as a narrative, even vaguely. I have dozens of ideas a week and this is my attempt to see which have ‘legs’ and which are good ideas, but perhaps not for me. Often I might write the blurb of the imagined book, or a chapter or few pages. My books tend to be in the first person so this often doubles up as character development

Building Blocks/Plotting: if the story does survive to this stage, I might brainstorm/mind map the themes and some initial ideas for key scenes or characters, as well as the central journey or quest my main character might be engaged in. If I am about to write the book, I’ll do this in more detail, but ideally not long before I sit down to write the project, otherwise I will be bored by the time I get round to working on it… I have a short attention span

Writing: at this stage, the themes and concepts and plot are all liable to change but probably not dramatically. I generally write pretty quickly after the planning, perhaps completing a first draft in 3-6 months. I may also do some research but I tend to focus on story rather than detail

Re-drafting: this is where I will try to reconnect with those initial themes and inspirations.

Kate Harrison blogs at: http://chicklitworkinprogress.blogspot.com/; her website is at: www.kate-harrison.com

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Creating a Text – Kate Harrison

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