Guest Post: My Creative Process

When my friend Bookwyrme asked me if I'd like to contribute to her blog and talk about the creative process, I jumped at the chance. Bookwyrme and I both have a passion for and sincere love of books. I'm a lifelong reader, and I recently published several books, something that's been an aspiration of mine ever since I was little. Given this, it's probably not surprising that I loved the idea of talking about my creative process and what it means to me.

When I think of the term "creative process", I love how it sounds. It seems so organized, so orderly, a sort of checklist process where I follow the steps and the end result is a written work. If only this were actually the case! The truth is, my creative process is messy, disorganized, and confusing--which tends to make me crazy because I am, by nature, a very organized person. I make checklists all the time, I track everything on my calendar, I alphabetize all of my books--you get the picture. But when it comes to the process whereby I create my books, well, that's much more like the way a room looks after a young child has played in it. I'm constantly tripping over things, trying to wade through the mess, and finding myself distracted by something when I'd meant to be doing something entirely different. The truth is, though, that I wouldn't give this chaos up for anything.

I've been scribbling since I was a child, so living in my head, creating imaginary worlds and filling them with people, is something I've just always done. I loved it when my teachers gave us creative projects to work on, because I was happy to have an excuse to let my imagination run wild. Even the most mundane tasks are a source of inspiration to me at times. When I'm out walking, I'll find myself looking at a tree and thinking up a little fiction about it. When I take a trip, I love to look around the airport and imagine where all the people are going, what they'll find when they get to their destinations. I live and breathe the words "what if", and this often serves as a springboard for my ideas. What if the world looked a little different than it does now? What if I chose to leave the house five minutes later than I actually did? Endless speculation is like my bread and butter.

And that's precisely why my process is so messy. I often start out with good intentions, creating outlines and setting up character sketches--or at least trying to do these things, anyway. But as I'm staring at my character template trying to think of what color hair my character will have, a story will come to me and I'll have to switch to writing, to getting the flow of words and images from my brain onto my computer screen. At some point I may go back and flesh out that character template I was working on, but I may not. I'm what's known as a "pantser", which means I fly by the seat of my pants, just watching where the story takes me.

This isn't always entirely productive. Sometimes, when I'm finished with something, I'll go back and gut it and totally rewrite it. I'll decide I don't like a minor plot thread that I introduced, or think that I need to flesh out a secondary character. I don't feel like my stories are done until I have the sense that I've ironed out all the nagging details. I don't think, "This character needs to do x, y, and z" because that feels too much like I'm guiding them. As strange as this may sound, my sense of rightness comes about when I feel like the characters are guiding me. The story is done when I think, "Yes, that's just what this character would do."

Like many authors, I have lots of different ideas percolating. One of the things I love about being in control of my own books is being able to write anything I want. So far, I've done a Beauty and the Beast retelling (The Eye of the Beholder), a young adult dystopian/post-apocalyptic novel and novella (Contributor and Creators), and a novel of contemporary women's fiction (Phoning It In). But while my genres may vary, the common thread that ties them together is this: What If? After all, isn't life ultimately a game of What If?

Introducing K. Zolnoski, author of The Shadow of The Hand of God

Hello, I’m K. Zolnoski, author and aspiring Civil Engineer/Project Manager. What I’d like to talk about, what my dear friend Bookwyrme has asked me if I’d like to talk about, is my book. I wrote a book entitled The Shadow of the Hand of God This is a book for everyone who has ever felt bullied, outcast or alienated by their family, their school, the culture they live in and especially the church they go to.

I wrote this book because I was called to do it. It is as honest and compassionate as I know how to make it. It is also a stern warning to the kinds of churches that practice spiritual abuse upon their congregations. These things are real, the abuse, and my love of the church compels me to point out where it is going horribly wrong.

Perhaps some of you have some familiarity with Plato’s analogy of the cave? In short, Plato posited a thought experiment wherein a group of people were placed in seats in a cave, constrained such that they could only look in one direction, towards the back wall of the cave. Then a light was shone from behind them so that shadows fell upon the wall in front of them. They could not see the source of the light nor any objects held up in front of it but only the shadows. These people, Plato contended, would come to believe that shadows not only represented real objects but were the objects themselves. Further if someone from the cave were to miraculously be allowed outside to see the real objects and the sun itself, this person would at first not believe reality, but rather cling to the shadow reality he had always known. Then once he became convinced of the truth if he were sent back into the cavern to tell others about his experience, and that they were living in a world of shadows and not reality, they would consider him insane.

This is how we see many things in the world. We see a part of something, a shadow cast by someone’s life, and we mistake this glimpse for the full knowledge of the real thing. We see the perfect family in a picture and we are envious of them for having what we want. What we never know is the pain hiding beneath that perfect image. We can’t know the struggles, the sacrifices or the hardship others have endured just by looking at what we see now, in this moment.

That is why compassion is so important. The truth is, unless we’ve lived someone's life, we don’t know what their story really is. I wrote The Shadow of the Hand of God to let people who believe they are alone know that they are not alone. I wrote it so that the outcast would know that he or she is not the only one to suffer rejection. I wrote it to remind us that we are all human beings, with flaws yes, every one of us but also with great beauty that we can only share in when we stop hating and start loving.

The Shadow of the Hand of God was a hard book to write. It was hard because in order to reach out to others, I had to share my own pain. In order to write this book I became a Christian apologist. I have no formal training in either theology or philosophy and yet I am now both a philosopher and theologian.

There are hidden talents within everyone. We all have that something within us that we secretly nurture but that our culture, or our family, or others tell us that we can never make a living at. Society tells us that if we can’t make money at it, then we are wasting our time to pursue it. That is a fallacy of the modern world. Many of the greatest things in life and in the history of our species have never made a profit. Most of the great artists and authors of the past died poor men. Nicola Tesla died in poverty and he is one of the greatest minds of the modern world. Life is made worth living not by how much money we make but by the things we create, the people we help and the positive impact we have upon those around us.

Don’t be hard on yourself. Don’t be harsh to others. Be soft. Be kind. Be encouraging. Be nurturing. Be the best person that you can be. Forgive. Forgive yourself. Forgive others when you have the strength to do so. Forgive yourself if you cannot yet forgive others. Enjoy the days. Never be afraid to be who you are because you are amazing.

You can find The Shadow of the Hand of God in both paperback and Kindle formats. It is also available at Barnes and Noble in the EPUB format.
I also have a Facebook page where you can discuss the book and keep up on my next project In The Flesh which is a work of pure fiction and I’m enjoying writing it, and I blog over at M31 Publishing’s site.

Celebrating Creativity

As I returned to this blog, I started thinking about all the really fantastic, creative people I am surrounded by, and I wanted to celebrate them. They are writers, artists, photographers, book makers, home makers, violin players who also sail and teach, reviewers. Some of them I’ve known for years, some I’m related to, some of them have blogs I read regularly, some are published. All of them are awesome, and I wanted some way to celebrate them.

So I’ve started a new guest column, one I plan to run monthly. This is actually fairly unambitious of me; I know more than twelve really awesome people, but I figured I’d work myself up gradually in the asking department.

My good friend, K. Zolnoski, has agreed to be my first guinea pig guest and is beginning the column with an article on her new, non-fiction book, The Shadow of the Hand of God. She's also currently writing a novel, In the Flesh. I expect to hear a lot from her everywhere, soon!

I hope you enjoy the new column.