“How Writers Create Their Fiction”: M.T. Anderson
I uncovered this month-long NPR series “How Writers Create Their Fiction”, originally run in November 2006. I found many of the ideas presented by the various writers to be informative and inspirational, so we’ll be featuring one writer from the series per day during February.
Today’s writer is M.T. Anderson:
How He Writes: “I eat broccoli. I think about the plot. I pace in circles for hours, counter-clockwise, listening to music. I try to think of one detail in the scene I’m about to write that I’m really excited about writing. Until I can come up with that one detail, I pace. I put on another CD. I hum along. I get an idea. I prepare to begin. I shake out my fingers. I sit down. I type the first word. I erase it. I type in another first word, and consider the second word.
The phone rings. It’s a friend calling to tell me a great story about running into her ex-stalker at Cinnabon. We talk for an hour and a half.
My time for writing is up. I go to bed. I feel guilty and miserable. Oh well. Better luck tomorrow.”
Writer’s Block Remedies: “Sometimes it’s helpful to analyze what’s wrong, to ask why it is that I don’t feel enthusiastic about what has to happen next. I ask myself if I can skip over the part that I appear to dread. I ask myself if perhaps there’s another angle I could take, or if there’s some detail that might reinvest the situation with interest for me.
Sometimes a random infusion of fact helps, so I go read about a topic about which I know nothing (there are a lot of them) and see if anything floats to the surface. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I know when I find it.
Sometimes reading other writers helps. You learn some little technique that turns out to be useful, or simply are reinspired by the amazing things others do.
Come back tomorrow at 9AM PST for more writing wisdom.