Long car rides...

I love long car rides.

Not just because I think driving aimlessly is a HUGE stress buster (unless you're driving on the beltway during rush hour...in which case you might end up killing someone) but it also gives me endless time to think, plot, characterize, describe, etc. There is no better planning time for me then when I'm driving a road that I know well with music on that inspires my creativity.

For instance, driving home to Pittsburgh this weekend I came up with more dialogue for one story and an awesome metaphor for another. Having time to come up with dialogue for me is huge, because when you sit down to write dialogue it might not always come out the way people talk. So the most important thing for me is to imagine a scene and go through dialogue once, twice or fifty times. The first time I think it through, the scene is like a skeleton. Then I get to figure out how I'd react to the situation, and then flip it into how my characters would react. After I find the dialogue I want to use, I'm able to focus on setting. What's around my characters as they're speaking? How do they interact with what's around them? What arm motions/facial expressions do they use as they're speaking/reacting to speech?

I really think that you can tell the scenes I've thought out and which I've tapped out in one of my writing sessions.

In retrospect: too much thought could also be a bad thing. I could see how thinking a scene too many times through would make it sound robotic, mechanical, mundane, practiced (ha, I love thesauruses). But for me, this method works best.

Current Song:

I just found that song while perusing youtube... but it's pretty fantastic in that damaged heart sort of way.

Happy Monday!