The Writer's Journey

I am still getting body-checked by my creative process. And even though I don't actually sleep, but drift just above sleep in some strange thinking-dream state, leaving me spectacularly exhausted – I'm happy.

The joy at not only being in a creative process, but beginning to understand how my process in particular works, is almost holy. Well, it is holy. Because I believe the creative process is a divine one.

Only I don't look very divine today, what with the suitcases under my eyes from lack of sleep.

I give you the process so far:

Embracing the Deadline
In which the writer commits to a barely human deadline for completing a massive project. And also in which the writer tells everyone she sees about this deadline, making it "real" and preventing her from backing out lest she look like a flake.

Copious Notes
In which the writer pukes out great sheaths of notes on character, plot and structure, usually becoming too smart for her own good and imposing such gimmicks as "The entire thing's written in haiku!" or "It's a great spiraling journey from the outside arrondissements of Paris to the centre of the city...from the external aspects of personality to the core of one's soul!" (Wait. That one might actually work.)

Twenty-Page Vomit
In which the writer bangs out pages upon pages in two days, her fingers barely able to keep up with the waves of completely misguided creativity pouring forth. Resulting in twenty pages of complete and utter crap.

The Sliced Bread Stage
In which the writer believes she is so far ahead of the game (who's game? there's a game?) that she adopts an irritating swagger in her walk and tells people she'll be writing two screenplays/novels/PhD dissertations by the Big, Ugly Deadline and will be sitting on Oprah's couch sometime next week.

Dark Night of the Writer's Soul
In which she reads through the thirty pages she has now written and discovers that she has no talent whatsoever and this project is a complete waste of time and perhaps she should do the world a favour and throw herself of the nearest bridge. Taking the Laptop Of Horrible Writing with her.

Torpor
In which several days pass without the writer dislodging her rear end from the couch. These are the horse latitudes – a period of no current, no movement, no writing. Just waiting. And drooling. And staring into space.

Spastic Insight
In which the writer sees something, like a midget, or reads something, like the original idea from way back before she got all "clever" with it, and the project comes jerking back into focus. Despite it being nervewrackingly close to the Ridiculous Deadline, the writer begins again. From scratch.

Humble Servant
In which the writer, backside still stinging from the spanking she's received from the Great Creator, humbly opens herself to creative guidance from the Universe. She slowly and carefully works through the material she's gathered, paying close attention to twinges from her intuition and keeps her big, barking ego tied to a post in the front yard so it can't get in and slobber all over everything.

Tumult
In which the project is clear and gaining momentum. So much momentum that it is like a freight train inside the writer's skull and if it doesn't come out through the writer's frantically typing fingers, it will gladly blow a hole right through her frontal lobe. At this stage, the writer thinks people who want to "have dinner" or "meet for coffee"with her are either insanely unaware of how a writer works or are spies sent to sabotage her process.

Trusting the Process
The project is not perfect, but the writer is aware of that. She simply works with what she knows at that moment, trusting that clarity will come when it is required. And not a moment before.

This is the state the writer would be well-served to be in all the time. Unfortunately, it's usually forgotten as quickly as the pain of childbirth. (Or so I've heard.) And so at the beginning of the next project, the writer will believe that she is not only driving the bus, but she designed and engineered the bus herself. And it's the fastest, coolest, prettiest bus anyone has ever seen.