Writing Jello Slime
Sometimes I feel like the stories in my head are made of Jello, or slime, or Jello slime.
The stories jiggle and wiggle and they float in my head in a state that is neither solid nor liquid. The trick is trying to catch them and mold them into something.
I kind of thought I was crazy.
Then I heard professional authors at the conference I attended talk about how they wrote. They talked about characters having their own personality how sometimes they had to change the entire direction of a story to accommodate these characters. I heard about people talking to themselves in the mirror in order to understand the story. I heard all about how other people write.
Suddenly my Jello Slime didn’t seem so abnormal.
As I write and sometimes the slime begins to congeal into something solid and a story begins to take a shape it can hold and grow with it. I love that feeling. Like I helped the slime find it’s permanent home.
Sometimes the first shape I try seems like it will fit, only to find out as the story grows that the slime won’t hold the design I set. So I try another shape, and another, until I find the shape that fits the story. The shape that fits the slime and makes it something solid, gives it a home.
Hmmm…. writing sounds kind of gross when put it in terms of slime. Sometimes it gets frustrating to keep fighting to figure out how the slime needs to look. What will make it comfortable enough to set and become solid.
Still I love it. It kind of reminds me of motherhood.
Kids can be slimy too, uhm I mean there is no set pattern and each child is unique, just like each story. Sometimes you have to reset the entire pattern of parenthood/writing, to accommodate the slime… er, I mean story/child you are working with.
Motherhood and writing. My two favorite jobs