An hour ago this world didn't exist

Following on from last week's post about original creation, I think there's much more to be said about the business of creating.

Now that I've started planning my novels before I begin to write them, creating the chapter plan is the real hard work.  For me, chapter plans are quite detailed, and they usually run to between 20 and 26 pages of single-spaced type when I'm finished.

I write down the major events that are going to happen in each chapter.  Usually I know where I'm going to start the narrative, and often I have a good idea of my ending point too when I begin.  But when I start to plan I rarely how my characters are going to get from A to B.

I'll admit that sometimes producing the chapter plan is a hard slog.  For me, this is the first part of original creation, and it taxes me greatly.  Sometimes I get to the middle and have to take a break from it.  It feels like I'm rolling a heavy ball uphill.

But taking a break is part of the creative process too.  Often I'll go for a walk by the shore, or spend some time watching the swans glide by.  Walking is, of course, a form of moving meditation.  It's a  way of taking the mind out of its over-logical left-brain part and helping us to tap into the right-brain's ability to see patterns and unusual connections between facts and events.

And often the solution to a problem will suggest itself as I walk, often alongside other information that drives the plot in other ways.  And when I get home and write this new idea down it's as if it is a key.  The ideas unlock in front of me, opening-up like petals facing the sun.

I never have any doubt that I can solve plot problems.  It always comes good in the end, even if I do take a few wrong turns along the way.  And when I've finished my original creation it never ceases to amaze me  what I've created.  People, places, politics, complex histories, and long quests all emerge out of thin air.

There's many a time I've marvelled at the creation I've made.  I've delighted in seeing a world that, just an hour ago, didn't exist.