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Writers stare at a blank page and clutch their cold coffee mug in a last embrace of sanity, or they sit bathed in divine light, inspiration pouring forth as ink onto blessed paper. Wouldn’t life be nice if it were all so straightforward? Camels sprout little pink fairy wings as often as the writer’s life is so dramatic. Both stories might be interesting to read (well, I find fairy-winged camels interesting), but neither hold truth.

Writers aren’t a talkative bunch when it comes to their personal method of achieving a few potent paragraphs. This isn’t so much because writers are part of a secret cult that bans such revelations, but because few writers ever stop to consider what it is they do to prime the writing pump. They just do it.

To the point

It can be difficult to consider the writing process, as Lindsey did in Issue #3. What do I do to form that exquisite insight? How do I cultivate my thoughts and harvest sentences? When I’m stumped and can’t produce prose without a photocopier, what’s my secret?

The way a writer finds gold constantly changes as their inner eye develops, their world moves, and their writing matures. I’m not going to lie to you: the writing process is a messy experiment. There is never a one-stop answer. In fact, for each writer, the answer will change as often as their life, and I don’t think anybody needs a reminder that life changes quite a bit.

Ingredients for an inspiration brew come from myriad experiences and ideas. But sometimes we spend too long in the kitchen puttering around not really making any progress. Over some years, I’ve experimented with methods, tips, and tricks to prime the writing pump. I had my fair share of failures, with some big falls, and a number of humorous ideas-gone-wrong, but in the end I came out with something that really does work for me. And so, after much taste testing, I present to you my recipe for writing.

3 cups Marinara sauce

There is nothing magical about writing. This is an important thought. Writers are not blessed with superpowers. We can’t snap our fingers and novels slide out of the clouds. If you’ve tried writing (or the harebrained novels-from-clouds suggestion in the previous sentence), you know what I’m talking about. If you want to write, there is something you can’t get away from. No, really, that is the truth. It is standing stark naked in front of you in its own two-word paragraph.

Hard work.

If you sat down to write a witty satire on the shifting views in American politics and somebody leaned over and said, “Hard work. That’s how you’ll turn this into a great article,” you might give them a resonating sock in the jaw and then return to your witty editorial. It is a pleasant thing that I am out of your range of physical violence, because that somebody is right.

Just like anything in life worth your while, worth your readers’ while, worth anybody’s while, writing takes hard work. The Colts didn’t win the Superbowl by just dreaming. Ludwig van Beethoven didn’t compose some of history’s most powerful music by dawdling on a piano bench. Nobody ever wrote a novel worth reading without hard work.

If you are struck by inspiration, that doesn’t mean you’re off the hard work hook. It means you have something worthwhile to work hard on. Hard work means turning off the Internet, the TV, and not watching the news. It means taking out your paper, computer, or other writing tools. And writing.

It’s the first, middle, and last part of any good piece. Hard work. Those are some pretty tough words. But don’t forget the nice part. Every bit of that hard work is worth its while. There are fewer parts of life more satisfying than articulating your greatest thoughts and seeing them in physical form. (Of course, you might get paid for it too, and that really is great.)

2 packets spiral noodles

Never turn off your brain. Craft metaphors strolling through the country fair. Chuckle at the dangling participles on the gaudy neon-tape signs. On a brisk fall day, search your mind for phrases that describe the relationship between leaf and rake.

Last summer, I was walking several hours from home in search of a hiking path (which turned out to have been razed for a new residential development). During my wanderings, I took mental notes on the differences between rural America and Canada and began putting together a story in my mind. By the time I returned home, I had a situation, characters, and motivations to drive a plot.

When you sit down with hopes of words jumping onto a page, you will find a mind that is well exercised and in shape to write. If you haven’t been training for a marathon, do you really think when you get to the 26-mile course you’ll magically win the race? Of course not.

Actively think. Engage your greatest gift (your brain, that is). And when it comes time to be inspired and work hard, your thoughts will be ready to sprout.

1/2 cup grated mozzarella

Read. A lot. Learn from those who have gone before you. Let them teach you and inspire you. Know your craft and enjoy it. Read. Every day.

Indeed, how can a writer not love to read? For he writes things for others to read.

1/2 cup chopped onions

Write. Write every day about the mundane and unimportant, the glorious and grand, the untapped and unknown. Or write about dinner. The best way to learn to write is to write. If you don’t know how to do something, do it, right? Write.

Constant journaling helps me become familiar with the way I conceive and arrive at thoughts. There is nothing more important to writing than writing. Sometimes, I surprise myself at what comes out in my journal. The mind is a powerful entity and possesses many thoughts misting in the head. The physical act of transcribing the mist causes droplets to form that become clouds that became rain showers. And yes! The epiphany! There, sitting on my paper is that thought I have so long been trying to articulate!

It is a moment of rapture and a pure joy to discover in our minds thoughts we hardly even knew were there. And these thoughts aren’t anyone else’s. They are yours. And now, since they are on paper, they will not be forgotten.

My journals have become a great resource.. I have neither the fingers nor toes to count the amount of times my journals have bailed me in a writing project. And of course they should! They are the chronicles of my ever-changing writer’s mind. What better place to look for inspiration than a captain’s log of your mind?

Some like to keep their journals in Microsoft Word documents or some other digitized form. If you do, with no reserves I recommend using DarkRoom over feature-heavy concoctions like Microsoft Word.

10 tbsp. Tabasco sauce

The Zone. That glorious state of divinely inspired productivity. There is a way to find the zone on a regular basis. I go to my Sanctuary. A Sanctuary is that situation or ritual that you know, that has become a part of you, that opens you to inspiration and unadulterated thought. (I like to call it a Sanctuary. You can call it a Key or a Magic Wand or a Weird Eccentric Thing, if it floats your boat.)

For most of us, it is a place. A place you can call your own. A refuge, a retreat. A place with a door and a place where you can be alone. But the most important part is that it has a door. For some, it is a study with their favorite photos and paintings on the wall, or the quiet solace of the basement. Whatever or wherever it is, make sure it’s a place you can always go back to, undisturbed. A place where you can feel alone with your thoughts and care not the least of what they mean to others.

I like to write in the bath, in the evening after dinner, with a glass of white wine. This is my Sanctuary. In fact, the majority of my best writing has come from when I am prune-skinned and waterlogged in a tub of hot water. I sit in the water (which of course must produce ample steam) with the clouded glass of wine on a nearby shelf, and brandish a pen at my notebook. And for whatever reason, it works. My mind is lifted upwards, I remember the important lost thoughts, and my thoughts find themselves in words.

It does not matter where, it does not matter how, it does not matter when. It matters if it works for you. My Sanctuary is a bathtub. What is yours?

I think most of us have a small repertoire of rituals or activities beyond the Sanctuary that aid in the smaller, but equally important, tasks of writing.

Such as coffee. (I even wrote an article on coffee inspiration.) Come on now, what writer doesn’t like coffee? OK, OK, a few of them, but not many! But as great as a hot cup of coffee can be, it’s not enough on its own. I like to crack open some Beethoven or Dvorak. Or listen to the birds whistling and twittering behind the screen of leaves, the grass shuffling like pants with too much slack, and the ceiling fan’s slow, rhythmic beating of the air.

And silence. I love silence. I write with silence more often than music. Silence, the void of noise, has a scary way of allowing a mind to confront thoughts in an alarmingly real manner. (I find cigars, in the right company, create the same effect of silence but on the collective.)

I mention these means to inspired writing because as important as having a Sanctuary is (and I don’t know a good writer that doesn’t have one), don’t forget that the brunt of the work is done in the reality of life. I don’t sit in a bathtub every evening. It’s a place to go when I need to, not a place to live. Sometimes, you’ll need a Sanctuary, but mostly you’ll need hard work (and a cup of coffee).

So that’s my recipe. It works for me and I hope that you found it useful to you. Maybe a few of these ingredients belong in your recipe.

I gave you my recipe on writing. How about sharing yours? Maybe you just have a few thoughts, or paragraphs. Or maybe you have a ten-page manifesto on writing! I’d love to hear your ideas on writing, whatever they are. Shoot me an e-mail at magazine@mindsprocket.com. Who knows, maybe you’ll find yourself published in an upcoming issue of Mind Sprocket.

Illustration by Anatole Upart.

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Topics

• Pithy Tales
• Accounts & Glimpses
• Verse
• On Writing