The Writing Process (Part 2)
“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” – Terry Pratchett
The ability to write, let a loan create, in today’s image-obsessed, swipe left or swipe right culture, honestly requires an insurmountable amount of patience, persistence and an amount of courage too. Everyone has a story to them, but how many of our stories are put in public view for the people’s perusal? Stories are told in all sorts of methods, fashion, books, movies, video games, music – these are just the some of the more popular mediums that we consume and use on a day to day basis, but what isn’t detailed much is how these stories are brought to life.
No matter how old or young you are in life, we are all taught the basic premise that anything worth having is always worth fighting for, and while this may be the gospel universal truth for some, grabbing a sheet of paper and pen or pencil is a different activity altogether. With so many distractions engulfing us in our day-to-day lives, how can one develop the discipline to sit down and draw up ideas and concepts without the guarantee of a pay check coming through? I’ve detailed a few points below that may help in getting through it based on my own experience. Take notes Falcon Family…
Clear Vision
Having a clear vision can be a tool that you use to assist in developing that design concept or drafting a business plan that can make you more economically flexible for you and your loved ones. Create a dream-like vision for what you want, and you’ll be shocked on how it all transpires right in front of you. It may not turn out the way you expect it to, but most of the time, you’ll see that it comes to life simply because you kept thinking about it. This is just one way of looking at it, but I’m sure you get the point. I’m talking about creating your own reality based upon the stimulus's that you have around you as I alluded in the previous post.
“The Principle of Mentalism: The All is Mind. The Universe is Mental” – The Kybalion, Three Initiates
This is just one of the hermetic principles that the ancient priests understood in ancient Kemet (now known as Egypt in Northern Africa). So, you see, storytelling and reality interpretation has been part of the Human experience, regardless of who you are. I can go on a little bit more on the ancients and their practices, but I’ll leave that for another time.
Sketch the Details
So, you have your idea and you’ve visualized the success. Now it’s time to draft out some of the details, and I’ll be honest here family, if you’ve made it this far in actually drawing up an idea and plan, you’re already ahead of million (maybe even billions) of people who can’t get their things together. With that in mind, here’s a little side note: on your path to being a creative, you will meet all sorts of characters that will either propel you up or down – take none of this personal. You’re path is unique, which ultimately makes your story unique. Simply use this (whether it’s good or bad) as a source material for your life experience, an education to propel you for the next step.
The details of your story (or business plan, design etc.), should always include what you’d of course like to have on it. At this stage you’re putting in the meat in the bones: what ingredients are you putting into your work? This includes the theme of the story, characters, mood, what exactly are you aiming to portray? As I said with the previous post, with DRAX, I deliberately wanted to tell a tale that I would’ve loved reading or watching myself, and this was based from an amalgamation of experiences, mixed in with imagination. In a way, sketching the details is where everything can either get real interesting or become a harsh reality check. Perhaps writing that novel was never really for you, so you stopped, or you got real excited about it and kept going. There is no right or wrong answer here. Not everyone can craft a dream setting and run with it. The choice is yours.
Force Yourself to do it
This is where human nature and the universal law of duality come into play. To get rid of any bad habit or creating any more productive habits, require laser-like focus and persistence. In my experience, these are the simply said, but difficult-to-do keys. The good news is everyone has the potential to get it, but very few have the patience to see it through. This is also the stage where the application of both of the above stages also do their magic. To assist in going through the more difficult periods (writers block, setbacks etc.), keeping in touch with the original vision and constant internal reminders of why you’re pursuing what you are doing will help. An emotional connection to the details you sketch out will also help you go through the principals and concepts you devised in the previous stage. What’s more, is that you may even consider revising some of the original ideas or perhaps even create new ones.
In this day and age, distractions are almost near impossible to avoid and it is in your divine right to reject the immediate pleasures and luxuries that are at your disposal – temporarily at least. People within your circle may also have to be put to the side, as much as you love and respect your family, friends and peers, the objective of seeing out your creative project should be more important than seeking out the latest gossip on social media. Again, this is all easier said than actually done, but only you can see this through. Rest assured you’ll be going through a buffet of emotions out of that, remember that whatever emotion you’re going through, keeping your head is what will ultimately see you through, which brings us to my final stage.
Embrace the feedback
It’s incredibly unusual for anyone to ask for a critique of their work, but this is where you can further authenticate your creation. Learning to deal with feedback (good or bad) is what I consider, the icing on the cake for your invention. What’s the initial response? Who exactly gave you feedback, and what type of individual was he/she? As you probably know by now, it’s all down to your perspective and how you interpret the feedback will determine the next step on your projects’ creation. You may also consider giving away free samples of your product or creation for any initial feedback. I did this very thing while writing DRAX – to grab people’s opinion, I deliberately emailed a 1st draft of an early scene to gather early thoughts for the rest of the book. The feedback was positive, and I continued to write in the manner that I did – eventually releasing the via Blaque Falcon (after endless hours of copy-editing from a professional).
Clothing and Fashion is a little different, but the principle remains the same. The first item I managed to get manufactured was the Mens Falcon Printed T-Shirt in black. It was simple, and it fitted well on myself. I even managed to get a few professional shots of myself wearing it just for an opinion. As vain and narcissistic as it may sound, I once again asked for feedback on the item, and the initial response was that the symbol fitted well on the shirt – further exemplifying where I needed to go with the brand. All I had to do was keep coming up with products that were simple and effective for potential Falcon Family members.