Planning 101

We often situate ourselves in front of our computer screens or secluded in our rooms atop a mountain of comfortable pillows, as to aid our thought process. Our thoughts begin to drift as a stream of uncounsciousness envelops it whole as we attempt to put these fleeting thoughts into concrete words. Yet, nothing happens. The same barren white of the computer screen, or notebook page, mockingly stares back into our eyes persuading us to quit before we waste any more valuable time. As a writer you musn’t listen to its sootheful voice; It is the devil in disguse.

This is where planning can come in handy. A great way to get your thoughts onto paper is to disregard order.  The order of the world is chaotic.  This is the same order that rules the kingdom within your head.  There are a plethora of things you can do, such as:

Listening
Be in tune with your surroundings.  What sounds do you hear around you? A tic? Maybe a toc? Write it down. Tic Toc. Is the neighbor’s vicious pitbull barking at the mail man again? Write it down. Bark, Bite, Flee.  Is it so quiet that you can nothing but silence? I hear the silence of sound.  Write everything you hear, and don’t hear, down.  It’ll be useful for generating ideas.

Freewriting
“Don’t stop.”  This is the key necessary to open the gateway to a writer’s subconscious and most genuine thoughts.  Grab ahold of your favorite pen, or utilize your shiny and sexy computer, and write without quite thinking of what to write next.  Write indiscriminantly.  Whatever tragedies, errors, or blessings spew forth from your mind can be useful to come up with a concrete topic or idea to continue.  10 minutes is the goal.  But if you have ADD and cannot concentrate for too long, then do 5.  But remember, keep your fingers moving, let your pen bleed its glorious ink onto the page.

Listing and Clustering

1.    Dakota 2. Lunar Eclipse 3. Nile River 4. Freedom in Burma

It may seem like a random list.  That’s because it is.  It took 4 seconds of my time and I came up with 4 very distinct topics.  Making a list, like the one above, is a wonderful way to allow your mind to travel through its various realms and maybe stumble upon untreaded and undiscovered land.  If you want to further the specificity of a topic you can take out a clean sheet of paper, then write your topic, draw an oval around it, and stem off related ideas.  This is called Clustering.  Use it wisely my friends, for it is too often an untapped power now as now adays planning is discontinued.

The Fundamental 6
1.    Who
2.    What
3.    When
4.    Where
5.    Why
6.    How

If you ask yourself these very questions you can sort out a world of information.  I find this particular technique to be TOO specific when attempting to discover something new.  But when clustering does its job, you can follow through with this.

And Lastly …
It must be noted that you are to NEVER, under any condition, censor yourself.  I do not care if someone is holding a gun unto your head and told you that you must censor yourself because your life depends on; don’t do it.  As a writer, your life does depend on it but in a distinctively different way.  We are creators of worlds, ideas, characters, etc. We are able to assess the state of the world objectively and subjectively and reason it out accordingly.  It is our mission and drive to unleash unto the world our love. We do this through words and freedom of speech. Please when planing, consider everything and anything.  Let your thoughts speak for themselves.

Happy Planning.  I hope these tips help you get started on whatever it is you are working on.

A guide presented to you by:
http://www.iampoetry.org