March 24, 2016 | Would I like a couple of uninterrupted hours to organize my thoughts and escape into the writing zone? Yes. Yes, I would.
I recently turned 51, which is exactly middle age as long as I don't expel my last breath until I am 102 years old. It's possible. I see centenarians on Willard's Smucker's labels almost every morning on the Today Show. However, I do not call myself a midster simply because I am middle-aged.
You may have heard writers discuss the way they go about their writing process. They throw around terms like plotter (someone who painstakingly plans the plot) or pantser (someone who tends to write by the seat of their pants and see how the plot pans out). I suppose I'm closer to a pantser, if I had to choose between the two.
I have a character, a film actor from London, who would chuckle at the term, reminding me "pants" are "undies" where he grew up. I have, honestly, written by the seat of my undies. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I've written by the seat of my pajamas, my sweatpants, my faded jeans, and my pencil skirt, too. Yet, I'm not really a pantser.
I am a midster. I write amidst the rest of my time. I write on the back of my grocery list, in the midst of the produce department. I'll make notes on my phone in the middle of the night, afraid I'll forget my dream by the time morning dawns. I pull over in the midst of morning commutes to make notes at the side of the road. I write in the midst of waiting rooms and train cars and airplane cabins and church pews.
I'm obviously not a full-time author. I don't sit contemplatively staring at my keyboard, waiting for the next great American novel to pour forth from my fingertips.
I work full-time in a busy study abroad office where I interview college students all day. I'm a busy wife and mother and grandmother. I have a busy volunteer assignment for my church, but I also have running dialogue and quirky characters and interesting storylines on a continuous loop in my head. The only way to set them free is to grab the spare minutes mingled amidst the busyness of the day and write.
Would I like a couple of uninterrupted hours to organize my thoughts and escape into the writing zone? Yes. Yes, I would. If I'm realistic, two uninterrupted hours don't come along very often. Okay. Never. They never come along. The only way I manage to get any of it out of my head is to snatch those free moments and write like a midster.
I write on sticky notes and discarded envelopes. I thumb-type on my notes app. I tell stories in my voice recording app. I make notations on the fast-food napkins someone stuffed into my car console. I ask Siri to remind me later. With any luck, I gather these random thoughts and enter them into Scrivener or Word, and with greater luck, a story unfolds from the midst of the chaos.
When the random bits morph into something awesome, it makes their frenetic beginnings worth the effort. Midster writing? Not a perfect process, but a girl's gotta work with what she's got.
留言