Hi friends!
So, I have a confession. I'm a messy writer.
What I find funny is that being messy didn't bother me as a kid. My room was ALWAYS a mess growing up. In fact, even the side of my bed I didn't sleep on was dedicated to notebooks, pens, and paper because I stayed up into the wee hours of the night studying for school. But now as an adult, I can't stand having a messy house (sorry mom, I finally understand why you were always asking us to clean up after ourselves). I live with roommates so I've learned to tolerate some mess, but when it gets to a certain point, I must clean. It's probably why my office is my favorite room in the house because its always the cleanest. I can't work with a mess lying around. However, I still know how to create a mess.
When I have an idea, I scribble it down on either a post-it note or notecard. The ideas on these post-it notes and notecards then find themselves scattered around the house. It's always humorous to find these half-baked thoughts when I least expect to.
And when it comes to writing, I surprisingly like being messy. It's as if that last part of the child in me - the part that contains my imagination - refuses to give up her messy habits and that shows up in my writing process.
For me, writing on these post-it notes and notecards allows me to be creative and explore my world and characters without the pressure to be perfect. Even when I look at a pristine blank page in my notebook dedicated to ideas like the ones found on these post-it notes and notecards, I feel the need to write something fantastic, awe-inspiring, and magical. But the half-finished sentences, messy handwriting, and sometimes incoherent thoughts aren't any of those things. I feel like those are the things I have to get out of my brain and write down before I even have a chance of producing something magical.
But maybe there is something magical in this process. A good majority of these ideas don’t ever make it into a word document on my laptop. They’re more like sparks of ideas that ignite the fire for my creativity. And with enough sparks, I have a fire that allows me write a story. It takes A LOT of these post-it notes and notecards to create a story. At the end of a draft, I'm always sort of in awe of how many random thoughts got strung together to make a book.
It's easy to admire the organized writer with their color coded binders, intricate outlines, and regimented schedules, but I think there is also something beautiful about being a messy writer too.
Thanks for stopping by my blog! Hope to see you around here sometime soon!
Taylor
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