1000 Hours of Writing: Hours 200 - 240
For complicated reasons, that I can't be bothered to explain, this posts covers the last 40 hours, not the usual 20. Why shouldn't it be this way? Sticking to old rules and regs can be painful and annoying. It locks you in and after a while you get stuck only recycling the same thing over and over and over and over and over and ...
Sometimes it can be incredibly refreshing to break out of these bounds. But how?
In late December while twiddling my thumbs I was wondering what project I could take on in 2017. Should I paint a house? Take a car apart? Build a motorcycle? Run a marathon? In the end I had settled for the old-fashioned collaboration.
And who better to chose than someone who wants to produce creative content for the same fandom as me? More importantly, only one of us is a writer. My partner is a talented artist. It took a moment to work out how: in four months she would draw a picture, I would write a story that goes along with it. In other months I would write a story that would inspire a wonderful picture. Win, win!
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| A wonderful picture |
We started with my friend drawing a picture. I was nervous, shifting in my seat ... what would it be? What if it would only inspire a wet fart? What if my story could not do it justice? What if it's a topic that I do not want to write about? We hardly set any rules. There was nothing that could stop her from bringing destruction upon me. Then the prompt came, and I inspected every detail of it. A day later I sat down to write.
My friend's prompt turned out to be something that I had never really considered. I admit my first reaction may have been an eye-roll - sorry about that. Then I went to go about wondering how I could make it work without leaving my characters adrift. I have to admit, that I like what I had written. True, it was not something I'd normally write, but I thoroughly enjoyed playing with the characters. By the end I was so deep into it that I wished I could have gone on even further. However, one of three rules that we had set was a word limit. Sigh.
Still, I can recommend a collab to everyone who feels too comfortable in their own writing. The moment when a fluffy piece is no longer exciting, and seems like the same fluff you wrote last week. Then it might be time to let someone else give you a prompt. It helps to write outside your comfort zone.
How about finding a musician, so you can turn your poems into songs? ;)
ReplyDeleteI know this was meant as a joke, but this is the reason why Halsey became a singer; so people would pay attention to her poems. That aside, I am too small, you wouldn't be able to spot me on the stage ...
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