"So we follow our wandering paths, and the very darkness acts as our guide and our doubts reassure us." -Jean Pierre de-Cassaude
I've found I write most effectively when I don't have any expectations of myself. I can plan a novel out in detail, but sit down to write, and only manage to tick out a few sloppy lines. It is the time that I spend letting my mind wander that I am able to write dozens of pages in minutes.
This is creative wandering. I like to use the analogy of a kite. On a windy day we may take our bright red kite out to the fields to see it fly. The kite strains against the string, eager to fly higher, but we have anchored it to the ground by a string. We fear letting the string go and losing our beloved kite forever. But if we toss the kite into the air and let the string go, the wind will take the kite on the most glorious journey it ever hoped for.
Those flights are the stories that beg to be written. They come to a writer's mind when it is most relaxed. While I was writing my first novel, some of my most convincing material came straight from a dream I had the night before. Dreams are so nonsensical that they make perfect images to create stories from.
If a story is forced, the language will be forced and the story will become a burden. When I find myself in agony during my writing time, the story will lack every sense of passion except for cynicism. So I set aside that storyline and imagine a story could be it's exact opposite.
Sometimes these wanderings turn out to be nothing more than exercises that get my words flowing. At that point I may return to my original story with a new drive. Other times these secondary stories blossom into the most successful stories I never knew I wanted to write.
Like the red kite flying over new landscapes.
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