There comes a point in a writing project when you know it’s come together and is waiting to be written.  Which tells you one difference between me and many writers; I don’t write every day.  More than that, I don’t believe it’s necessary to do so. 

Oh, sure, it’s useful to build up your writing muscles by learning how to write consistently for a few hours at a time.  But having got to that point, which I learned to do a long time ago by working in ad agencies, I’ve found that the most important part of the writing process is the gestation period.

This is where self-sabotage and other such bullshit can come in.  I know myself well enough to know when I’m ready to get a sizeable chunk of writing done.  But it can take a while to get there, and there’s no point kidding yourself about it.  There absolutely are times you need to be disciplined and apply bum to seat and fingers to keyboard, make no mistake.  And having been there and found out what that’s about, it’s possible to move on and learn through experience what happens as you’re gestating a story.

Note that the metaphor is a very organic one, and that’s because it feels very much like that.  Put crudely, in the same way that you know when you need to dump, you discover what feeling is attached to needing to write.  And it is a need when you’ve got in tune with that process. 

Somewhere unconsciously, processes have been coming up with a bunch of cool stuff on your behalf: your part of the deal is to get that cool stuff down on paper when the time is right.  Ignore it, and there’s a chance you’ll scupper your relationship with whatever it is that produces cool stuff for you: simply, if you do nothing with it, how can you be trusted to make use of it in the future?

Analogies about elves making shoes, as per folklore, can be made at this point.  Treat your elves well, and they will reward you with everything from steel capped Dr Martens boots to stilettos, snazzy trainers to flip flops.  So, what goes into the proper care and feeding of elves?  Principally, a varied diet of sensory stimuli and the opportunity for regular rest and recreation.  The greater the input, the greater the output.

However busy I am, I find time for catching up with friends, going to see films, listening to music and pottering online.  All of those experiences help build up a sensory and conceptual database that the elves can utilise for…inspiration for next season’s shoes, to stretch an already weary analogy. 

Put your trust in that process, and you can achieve wonders when you need to.  I once participated in a charity event, where over the course of 4 hours in a drafty railway station, I fulfilled nearly 20 commissions at the request of commuters, working at a typewriter on a table.  Some of them wanted short stories, some wanted poems, others wanted a piece to keep their children entertained.  And each gave me some kind of framework for the writing that they wanted, choosing items, characters and themes from a menu. 

Madam wants a story of revenge featuring a crimson dress and a work colleague?  Very well.  Just after I’ve finished Sir’s science fiction drama involving an intelligent octopus.  And then I can get round to a rhyming yarn about Thomas the Tank Engine for the young man in the pushchair.

I’m just ready to reach the writing point for a tv treatment that’s been cooking in my head for a while now.  I’ve already got some of it down, and in the process realised how much more I needed to do, in a style that’s new to me.  Now it’s ready, I can spend time getting it down in written form, and then send it off for feedback before taking it to script stage.